THE TOP OF MY right-hand index finger is sore. Although the pain is by no means excruciating, it is ever-present, and though I first noticed it about a month ago, I've only recently begun to point the (numb) finger of blame.
The reason for this discomfort is my computer. Like many, I use a laptop with an in-built touchpad that I use to control the on-screen pointer. I operate the touch pad with my right index finger and when I slide it across the pad to move the pointer about, it begins to feel numb. The way I see it, the only solution is to knit myself a woollen finger puppet with a protective rubber snout, because there's no way I'm going to stop using my computer.
It gives you pause for thought. If one of the physical symptoms of using a laptop every day for two and a half years can present itself so clearly, what's going on inside the brains of someone who has used the internet for five hours a day, six days a week for the last decade or so? I'm one of those people who thinks that Google is making us dumb - it's got to be. Otherwise, why would they provide a word-a-day feature at the top of your search page? I don't think learning new words in any language makes you smarter, but I bet the Google people have figured out that it helps every user mitigate the time they waste trawling the ocean floor of the internet.
With a coffee in my hand and my new word tucked into my frontal lobe, I feel that I'm continuing my education when I fire up the information box every morning instead of acknowledging that I might be behaving in as productive a manner as I did when I spent the past decade slumped in front of a television set watching re-runs of Bergerac. I'm pretty sure that ever since I stopped chasing down re-runs of the Jersey-based detective show I've become stupid; dumber than a bag of hammers.
My knowledge is shallow and broad, and good only for the pub quiz, and I have the attention span of a gnat. I can't read books, films are getting harder to endure, and on television, even a medium-speed car chase around the quaint streets of St Hellier with a guy I recognise from EastEnders firing a plastic-looking gun at John Nettles has me reaching for the remote, disoriented. Why is the landlord of the Queen Vic shooting at Bergerac? Whose jewels are those? Where does Sandy fit in? I can't hazard a guess - my brain muscles have atrophied to the extent that I can't form opinions any more.
All I like nowadays are lists; whimsical (and frankly useless) lists. Only yesterday I composed one, and all by myself, too. Introducing . . . favourite song titles, in ascending order:
5. Handshake Drugs- Wilco.
4. Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast- Broken Social Scene.
3. He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot- Grandaddy.
2. Know Your Onion- The Shins.
1. There's No 'I' in Threesome- Interpol.
That's all well and good, but why? What was I going to do with this list? Nothing.
Then last week, the situation appeared to deteriorate rapidly when it took me fully three days to remember what age I was. I'm not kidding. I would start with the year of my birth and count forward through the years, and every time I got to 2008, I would find myself stuck. With this admission I felt a surge of whatever is the opposite of pride, but here was my problem. Was I becoming the age that the year suggested, or was I at that age already and becoming that age plus one?
It's true to say that as you get older your exact age does come to matter a little less. But still, I believe that everyone has a right to be told by their own mind what that magic number might be. And yet, every time I re-traced my steps and counted again, I'd run aground at the same point. In the end, I had to ask a friend of mine who I know for sure was born within a week of me. He provided the answer, but he got it wrong at first. What happens now between my birthday and his? What age will I be then? I'll have to ask my five year-old niece.
I blame the internet because I don't want to entertain an alternative. Every morning, I fire up the little white tablet and think to myself "I wish I could quit you", but I can't. There's no way. Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, Flickr, the Guardian, The Irish Times, Waxy, the AVClub, Gawker, New Yorker, "Why that's Delightful!", Una Rocks, Rosie, and on and on. My online life is obsessive, my daily routine compulsive, and I'm not alone. Recently, I heard someone begin a conversation with "Last week I was on the internet . . ." and he couldn't continue because of all the laughter. That sentence has acquired a whiff of antiquity, because it need not be said any more. People are borne along on waves of factoids, video clips, remixed songs, online bartering venues and photo-sharing sites.
You would think that there is relief to be found upon exhausting the bookmarks, but no. Then, I begin to re-check Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook and so on, just in case. All the trillions of pure ones and zeros buzzing in and around my mind, and yet I can't count past the mid-thirties. Maybe I was dumb to begin with, but I'll tell you one thing. It's certainly not making me smarter, and maybe now you can understand why someone can end up clinging to their word-a-day feature like a life raft.