Confessions of a Data Junkie
Yes, I’m an addict. I see that now. It’s taken me years to get to this stage, to finally acknowledge that I have a problem. I get cold sweats at the thought of losing coverage when I go on the London Underground. I twitch nervously when, sitting in a meeting, I feel the buzz of a message arriving in my pocket and my mind darts around as I imagine the world trying to reach out to me. I’m desperate not to miss a heartbeat, a nanosecond, a byte. Unable to resist I take my phone from my pocket, light up the screen and draw deeply on the raw, unfiltered data. I become serene as my cravings are suppressed by the dense cloud of information. The Internet has become the unrestrained dealer of my insatiable desire. I’m a data junkie.
As with most addictions, it took someone on the outside to force me to take a good, hard look at myself. On a work trip to Germany my iPhone was stolen from my pocket whilst walking through the airport. I was left stranded. No Google Maps to locate the police station, no email to check the address of my hotel, no phone book to call for help, no Twitter to broadcast my despair, no Facebook to receive condolences and commiserations from friends. Alone in a foreign land, far away from home, I was cast into data exile.
I now know what it must be like for an abstaining smoker, or even worse, a herion addict who has been abducted by the men in white coats and subject to sensory deprivation in the blinding-white cell of a rehab clinic. Over the course of my three-day business trip I was forced to give up my 30-a-day habit (megabytes, that is) and go completely cold turkey.
First came the disorientation, confusion and a consuming rage. Where is it? Why haven’t I felt it vibrate? Rather than enjoying the usual pleasures of executive hospitality or getting a good night’s sleep, my mind raced over every person I had met, spoken to or even brushed past that day, sure of identifying the culprit. ‘I’m going to kill the bastard’, ‘I NEED GODDAM INTERNET ACCESS, FOR F*CK SAKE’, I screamed inside, wanting to bash my head against the wall in the hope of seeing the twitter birds circling my head.
Then came depression and withdrawal. Reaching for my pocket to pat the reassuring bump of my iPhone yet again. A friend commented that I had lost my mojo. Without the 24-hour tickertape feeding directly into my brain, I no longer had anything interesting to say, no jokes to make, no chit-chat to make, which heightened my sense of isolation and depression.
Then on the third day I started to emerge from the tunnel. No longer did I sneak every available opportunity to feel for my pocket and dowse the roaring dragon of my addiction. I started to notice people on the tube; gaze out of windows, letting my imagination run free; I could enter a room without my eyes darting to find the nearest power socket; no longer did I strain to gauge the width of the walls and the topography of the area to work out if I’d have enough signal to survive. I felt my blood pressure lower and I could already concentrate better. I was finally free.
The next morning, jumping off the plane in London, I went straight to the phone shop. My insurance covered the theft. Phone in bag, I walked out of the store and headed home. I pulled out my laptop and plugged in the USB cable. Just then, I realised I had a fundamental, possibly life-altering, choice to make: You click on the blue iTunes icon – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. I could impose digital amnesia and live my life controlled by the machines. You press the red ‘cancel’ button – you stay in Wonderland and see how deep the rabbit-hole goes, take a chance, make a dash for freedom, live a life free fr…
… BOLLOCKS. Auto-sync.
