I'm not one to toot my own kazoo, usually. However, in order to stave off the soul-crushing boredom of living here in Bessemer until I find a full-time teaching job, I thought I'd start putting random articles about things that happen to be on my mind regarding the overall dumbness of life. Today, it's a phenomenon that I've come to regard as "Internet Twitch-Reflex Disorder," or ITRD.

All HOBOs are known for varying degrees of saavyness. For example: Tim is ball saavy for his mad basketball skills, G-Mac would be grill saavy for his incredible grilling ability, and Cheeks would of course be law saavy for obvious reasons. The majority of us are also fairly internet saavy, having the ability to peruse the internet tubes with the greatest of ease, finding videos, pictures, and articles of incredible value.

...and don't we ALL love a good value?

Part of my net saavy lately has been the excavation of school jobs at various district websites all over the internet. Google is a wonderful tool for this because Google will destroy all information it cannot index, thus making it the newest powerhouse in recording human history. There is a phenomenon that I have falled prey to, however, and I thought it bears mentioning here so that it may help the rest of you.

I've had a laptop chained to my body for the last one thousand years at NMU as part of their whole "laptop for every student initiative." Give a college student a laptop, and surely he or she will make excellent use of their time and use it only for their studies, right? Yeah...no. Wrong. Give a student a laptop with wireless internet and you'll see them carrying it into a bathroom and be able to hear the dinging of various AIM noises emanating from the stall farthest from the door. It's especially funny when someone's AIM noise is a cow or sheep.

Because I've had a laptop for so long, I now find it difficult to be disconnected for any long period of time. The dawn of Facebook only served to exascerbate this situation. When Facebook first appeared, I was on it constantly; and this was before the dawn of the constant stream of status updates that we have now. My usual browsing order went: email, Facebook, webcomics, Facebook, more webcomics, Facebook, email, Facebook, Facebook. This has not changed. In fact, one could say it has only gotten worse over time. Now...we have tabs.

Yesterday I was filling out an online application for the Prior Lake-Savage school district. They requested the address of NMU, so I clicked open a new tab so I could check the address. What letters did I type first? "F-A-C-E", which led to a down arrow push, followed by hitting the enter key, and suddenly it was twenty minutes and two Facebook status updates later. This happens totally by accident. It's not an addiction. It's now a bonafide reflex. Let's say I open a new window and want to check CNN.com for the current breaking news that People Magazine deems worthy of reporting. Tab, type, and there's Facebook.

Dammit.

I want to read the latest comic of Penny Arcade. Tab, type, and again...Facebook.

Damn. It.

I want to open up my student account and get the latest iteration of my unofficial transcripts. Tab, type...and...well you get the idea. It ends in a dammit.

I know this is because I've been hyperconnected for the last five-plus years, but now I'm wondering if it's an isolated incident. It goes right along with people getting "phantom buzzes" from having a vibrating cell phone in their pocket for too long and having a lot of people text them.

Tell me in the comment section of your own experiences with ITRD. It's just nice to know that you're not Facebook...

...God dammit.