That goes for passing, trivial questions, too. One pops in your head now, you itch until you answer it, because you can answer it. Pre-ubiquitous-web, fewer such thoughts reached the level of conscious awareness and they were rarely actionable, so, if not important, maybe you ask the people you're with ("hey, who was that guy in that one movie?") and if no-one knew or had the relevant coffee-table trivia book handy (so, most of the time), it went unanswered and the thought just went away. No itch.
I also find I burn a lot of time on meta-media (best-lists and such) and low-value reading (cough) because there's a ton of it available at the command of a whim, where before one had to spend real time seeking out or paying for that sort of thing (magazines and such). It's a pretty serious indictment of my Web activity that I wouldn't pay any money at all for most of it, if the choice were to pay or not to have it (Internet service doesn't count—I pay for it for the few things for which it actually is very useful, not for those).
Actually that word might best describe what we've done with this new environment: we've given vastly more power to whims. The Age of the Whim.
Sometimes I kinda miss just idly pondering a question and having to come up with plausible answers yourself. Of course I have the option to not look up answers -- which I often don't -- but then you still mis out on idly pondering with a group of people. Someone will have their cellphone out before you finish stating the question.
I also find I burn a lot of time on meta-media (best-lists and such) and low-value reading (cough) because there's a ton of it available at the command of a whim, where before one had to spend real time seeking out or paying for that sort of thing (magazines and such). It's a pretty serious indictment of my Web activity that I wouldn't pay any money at all for most of it, if the choice were to pay or not to have it (Internet service doesn't count—I pay for it for the few things for which it actually is very useful, not for those).
Actually that word might best describe what we've done with this new environment: we've given vastly more power to whims. The Age of the Whim.