Just like Nemo, we're caught up in the 'net

Did you know the attention span of a goldfish is approximately 8 seconds?

For starters, if you truly knew this isolated and useless tidbit of information, you need to examine your life.

But regardless, a new study by some unknown person who does useless studies shows that in today's hyper-tech society, humans and goldfish share the same attention span.

Eight lousy seconds.

The culprit in this dismal statistic is the array of new technology that puts us in front of some device that now occupies an estimated seven hours of our lives each and every day.

The study concludes that up to half of the population is bored at home or school and a whopping two-thirds of us are chronically bored at work.

Here's how boredom works.

Mankind seeks novelty to counter boredom. That novelty produces dopamine -- the chemical that makes us feel good. But once that chemical stimulus is realized -- about those magical eight seconds -- it's no longer new and boredom sets in.

Thus, we seek fresh sources of distraction to counter that boredom.

The bottom line is understandable.

We need to abandon those high-tech devices that have taken over our lives. Instead of spending far too many hours tethered to a device, we need to undertake activities that engage different parts of our brain -- sports, painting, cooking, etc.

Here's the obvious irony. Though these electronic advancements offer enough to fill our every moment of the day, they have become so repetitive and routine that the devices themselves become our source of boredom.

And what is the potential result of extended boredom?

Researchers tell us that boredom breeds overeating, gambling, drug use, risk taking and much more -- none of which will produce a positive outcome.

In far too many ways, we have become slaves of this new technology. And though we literally have the world at our fingertips, we find ourselves increasingly bored with the same repetitive keyboard tapping that floods our brains with overload.

The abundantly obvious solution is to dump these devices. But I fear we've passed the point of no return.

The faster we gorge on this overload of information/entertainment, the more we become bored. And the cycle continues.

It's my old-fashioned nature that yearns for less technology and more interaction. And yet I'm smart enough to know that battle has been lost.

If the studies are correct, then few of you would have mustered the attention span to complete this column.

Unless, of course, you're a fast reader and finished in under 8 seconds.

Did you know the attention span of a goldfish is approximately 8 seconds?

For starters, if you truly knew this isolated and useless tidbit of information, you need to examine your life.

But regardless, a new study by some unknown person who does useless studies shows that in today's hyper-tech society, humans and goldfish share the same attention span.

Eight lousy seconds.

The culprit in this dismal statistic is the array of new technology that puts us in front of some device that now occupies an estimated seven hours of our lives each and every day.

The study concludes that up to half of the population is bored at home or school and a whopping two-thirds of us are chronically bored at work.

Here's how boredom works.

Mankind seeks novelty to counter boredom. That novelty produces dopamine -- the chemical that makes us feel good. But once that chemical stimulus is realized -- about those magical eight seconds -- it's no longer new and boredom sets in.

Thus, we seek fresh sources of distraction to counter that boredom.

The bottom line is understandable.

We need to abandon those high-tech devices that have taken over our lives. Instead of spending far too many hours tethered to a device, we need to undertake activities that engage different parts of our brain -- sports, painting, cooking, etc.

Here's the obvious irony. Though these electronic advancements offer enough to fill our every moment of the day, they have become so repetitive and routine that the devices themselves become our source of boredom.

And what is the potential result of extended boredom?

Researchers tell us that boredom breeds overeating, gambling, drug use, risk taking and much more -- none of which will produce a positive outcome.

In far too many ways, we have become slaves of this new technology. And though we literally have the world at our fingertips, we find ourselves increasingly bored with the same repetitive keyboard tapping that floods our brains with overload.

The abundantly obvious solution is to dump these devices. But I fear we've passed the point of no return.

The faster we gorge on this overload of information/entertainment, the more we become bored. And the cycle continues.

It's my old-fashioned nature that yearns for less technology and more interaction. And yet I'm smart enough to know that battle has been lost.

If the studies are correct, then few of you would have mustered the attention span to complete this column.

Unless, of course, you're a fast reader and finished in under 8 seconds.