Wednesday, December 1, 2004

The Disease of Overstimulation

I want to tackle the issue of overstimulation. Growing up I had television, Nintendo (which I annually pay homage to), the internet, computer games, and all sorts of entertainment that captured my attention. I was reading the Tribune a few weeks ago, and there was a Zits cartoon about overstimulation that brought it to my attention. I thought about it for awhile and later diagnosed myself with overstimulation. Some of it's symptoms are excessive boredom, a high amount of video game playing, and the inhability to watch anything that's not flashing, exploding, killing, or visually oppressive. I'm haven't concluded whether or not being overstimulated is a bad thing, it does have it's benefits, for example, multitasking. But the cons are many, sitting through church can be difficult, as can reading, cleaning, working, brushing your teeth, and watching educational television. Maybe I'll have a future blog about treatment of overstimulation, but until then I'll blame it on our overindulged, entertainment glutton society(as I'm writing a blog, listening to music, searching ebay, checking my email, listening to the tv, and chatting).

1 comment:

UndercoverPunk said...

I had a talk with an older guy (late thirties or so) about this about a year ago. There's a huge break between generations on this, and I tentatively trace it back to the release of the Nintendo. Or maybe the Atari. Anyways, people raised before the release can focus well on a single task and get it done, but can't do multiple things at once very well. People raised after the release can do a lot of things at once, but can't focus on a single one and get that one thing done. It's a tradeoff. I used to be able to do both, probably because my experience playing chess helped me to focus, but not so much anymore.