You may be late for a very important date, but then something stupid on the internet appears and you become even more late.
The internet allows us to get all kinds of news, information, commentary, and of course, examples of blatant human ignorance and venality. The latter can come in many forms: it could be ignorant comments on a news article, a story on an excessive idiocy, or an artifact of pure drivel. Whatever form, it’s distracting.
When you see the stupid, you get curious. You have to read the comment, then see how people respondent.
When you see the stupid, you have to find out more. You click the link to read about the latest atrocity of human intellect.
When you see the stupid, you have to face the stupid. You read an entire article manufactured from delusions and deliberate idiocy just to find out how bad it is.
Then, your time is gone. It won’t be coming back. The stupid grabbed your curiosity and absconded with your time, and you helped it.
Anyone can spend hours down the rabbit hole of stupid. It’s intriguing, fascinating, horrifying, and you have to follow it. Don’t think I’m immune, my natural curiosity has taken me to some dark places where idiocy shined brightest of all.
I’m not proposing a moratorium on avoiding dumb things; just we be more aware of how we’re easily distracted by them. If you don’t think this is a problem, then remember you just spent how many minutes reading a blog post on how stupid things can be, so I may have just become part of the problem . . .
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.