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Oh dear, it’s nearly lunchtime and I have done no work this morning. I wouldn’t mind, but I was at my desk before nine, full of beans and good intentions.
I don’t know how it’s happened. Three and a half hours have just vanished.
I did take a quick look on Facebook and Twitter, just to see what the world was talking about and what my friends did at the weekend. But surely that didn’t take more than a few minutes?
Though, come to think about it, I did spend quite a bit of time looking at photos that my friend Amy had posted from her holiday to Spain.
The place she stayed in looked gorgeous, so I went on to the hotel’s website to check it out. It’s beautiful, you should see it — infinity pools, white walls and azure skies. I’m thinking of going, but I had a quick look at flights (well, not that quick, you know what these websites are like) and they’re too expensive.
But thinking about holidays reminded me that I needed a new swimsuit, so I popped on to a few shopping sites to see if there was anything good left in the sales. There wasn’t, so then I got down to work — or, at least, checking my emails.
The first message in my box was offering me discounted teeth whitening, so I did a quick bit of research online into the pros and cons of home vs laser teeth whitening before I snapped up the bargain.
Then I got an email from a friend with a link to a site about cute kittens. I’m not that into animals, but who can resist a film of nine kittens on a sofa all bopping their heads in time to music or the recording of a kitten squeaking its way down a slide? Actually, I’m not sure if that one is cruel or cute, so I watched it a second time to decide.
And then, before you know it, I’m on YouTube being recommended other funny animal films I might like, which somehow leads me on to home videos of people falling over... and here I am with a rumbling tummy at 12.45pm.
I think I need help. I am a cyber slacker — powerless to resist the draw of the internet. And it’s not just me.
Once upon a time, when you got to work you had to, well, work. There was nothing but a desk, your files and, if you were lucky, a window to distract you.
A certain amount of time could be wasted looking out of the window, playing with your stapler and doodling on the back of an envelope, but quite quickly work became a more interesting alternative to just sitting and doing nothing.
Then came the internet. Now every time we get to the office and turn on our computers we are logging on to a world of distractions — the chance to do our supermarket shopping online, look up old music videos on YouTube, follow breaking news minute by minute — it’s a wonder we get anything done at all. Or maybe we don’t.
Last month, it became apparent that civil servants spend a good part of their day wasting time on the internet. Freedom of information laws forced the release of a list of the top 1,000 websites visited by thousands of Whitehall officials over a five-month period. And what a list.
Apparently, our taxes go towards helping them monitor live cricket scores, check Lottery results, shop at Argos, play games that allow one to ‘walk amongst goblin, elves and dwarves’, book holidays and even plan belly-dancing lessons.
There were also 21,477 visits to a website dedicated to ranking MPs in order of attractiveness — sexymp.co.uk — while a site called preseed.co.uk, which sells ‘intimate moisturiser’, was accessed 13,295 times. Baffling.
This list makes my online habits look quite pedestrian and is an alarming reflection of inefficiency and idleness, at the public’s expense, in the height of a recession — but it’s also proof that many of us are useless when it comes to resisting the lure of the internet.
I used to be a conscientious and diligent person, but modern technology has turned me into a procrastinator of the highest order.
One minute I’m innocently checking the news, then I see a story about Kate Winslet and, before long, I’m looking at sites trying to buy her skirt. I’m like Alice falling down the cyber rabbit hole.
Crackdown: Dragons' Den star Theo Paphitis has banned his staff from using Facebook
Like an endless Jilly Cooper novel, I skip from site to site thinking ‘Just one more page’ and — hey presto! — a whole afternoon has gone.
That’s because studies have found the internet is as addictive as smoking or alcohol. The more we use it, the more we feel we need it.
In a trial in April, one guinea pig described going 24 hours without being online as ‘like having a hand chopped off’, while another study in Maryland found that people who were asked to not check emails or browse the internet for a day reported feeling fidgety, anxious and isolated. But the internet isn’t just addictive; it erodes our concentration, which means we search for distraction more frequently than ever before.
In his essay Is Google Making Us Stupid?, technology writer Nicholas Carr argues that technology has changed the way our brains work.
A long-time internet addict, he writes: ‘I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.
‘What the net seems to be doing is chipping away at my capacity and concentration.’
I couldn’t agree more. My concentration levels were never up to much at the best of times, but modern technology has left them almost non-existent.
I can barely go ten minutes without stopping work to check my emails or take a quick look at the news.
And it’s not just in office hours. In the evenings I can’t chat on the phone without looking on Amazon or eBay at the same time. Sometimes I feel as if I am not controlling the internet, it is controlling me. And it’s not a nice feeling.
'Studies have found the internet is as addictive as smoking or alcohol. The more we use it, the more we feel we need it'
At the end of yet another unproductive day, I feel harassed, dissatisfied and tired, even though I’ve accomplished nothing but filled my head with absolute rubbish. It’s the mental equivalent of eating junk food all day.
So, what to do? Well, try to exercise a bit of self-control would be the first thing. Experts recommend you force yourself to concentrate on a simple object for several minutes, without looking away.
Others advise using an egg-timer to set yourself 20-minute windows where you are allowed to do nothing but work.
But finding that most of us lack the self-discipline to kick our addiction ourselves, many companies limit access to certain sites.
A couple of years ago, Portsmouth City Council decided to ban its staff from using Facebook after it was discovered that workers were logging on to the site up to 270,000 times a month, spending an average 413 hours on it in just 30 days.
Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Theo Paphitis says he has done the same thing in his companies.
‘After all, no self-respecting boss would allow staff to spend all day talking to friends over the phone, reading out clips from celebrity magazines or passing on gossip,’ he says.
Too right, Theo. I just wish you were my boss, keeping me on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, my boss is useless — that’s because I’m my own boss. At this rate, I’ll have to sack myself. Or at least give myself a written warning.
Admittedly there are software programmes such as Freedom (mac freedom.com) that can temporarily cut off access to the internet so you can get some work done.
But what’s this? I’ve just checked my email again and a friend has sent me another link. It’s to an article about how new research has shown that workers are more productive after watching a funny clip online. Scientists at the University of Copenhagen found wasting time on the internet might be beneficial to the workplace, making workers more focused, motivated and effective .
I’d best take ten minutes to look at more dancing kittens — just to get me motivated, you understand. Then I’ll start work...
参考译文：
噢，天哪，已经快到午餐时间了，我今天上午一点工作都没做。尽管我不是很介意，但是九点前我已经踌躇满志地坐在办公桌前啦！我不知道它是如何发生的。三个半小时就这样消失了。我只不过是简单快速的浏览了一下Facebook和Twitter，只是看看大家都在谈论什么和朋友们在周末做什么，但我确定这不会花费很长时间。
然而，仔细想想，我确实花了相当长的时间看我的朋友Amy贴的在西班牙旅行的照片。她待的地方看起来很漂亮，于是我去酒店的网站上去看了看。它的美丽，你应该看到它 - 无穷远池，白色的墙壁和湛蓝的天空。虽然我也想去，我快速查找了一下航班（嗯，你知道的这些网站的，也不是那么快），但是太贵了。
对假期的渴望提醒我说，我需要一个新泳衣，所以我快速登上几个购物网站，看看有什么好东西在打折。不过没有，所以后来我开始工作 - 或者，至少，检查一下我的邮件。
在收件箱里的第一封邮件是关于美白牙齿打折的，在决定是否抢购这个便宜货之前，我上网去比较了一下传统和激光美白牙齿的利弊。
然后我从朋友的电子邮件链接到一个关于可爱猫咪的站点。我不是太喜欢动物，但谁可以抵抗沙发上九个小猫随着音乐摇摆头部或一个小猫喵喵叫着做着滑步的视频？但是，我不确定这个片子是残酷的或者可爱的，于是我又看了一遍。
然后，你懂的，我浏览了YouTube给我推荐的我可能喜欢的其他搞笑动物视频，然后无来由的又去了很久没有联系的朋友的主页...一直到现在中午12:45，我已经饥肠辘辘了。
我觉得我需要帮助。我是网络懒鬼 - 无力反抗互联网的诱惑。而且我发现不只是我自己有这样的问题。
曾几何时，当你开始工作时，你不得不，真的开始工作。你面对的仅仅是一张桌子，一些文件或者你运气够好的话，一个窗口来让你分心。
你可能会有一定量的时间来浪费，望着窗外，玩你的订书机，并在信封背面涂鸦，但是对于只是坐着什么都不干，立即去工作倒成了一件有意思的事。
接着互联网时代来临了。现在每次我们走进办公室就打开我们的电脑，我们连接上了整个世界来让我们分神 – 找网上购物的机会，看看YouTube上的老音乐视频，不断的去追踪爆炸性的新闻 – 在这样的情况下，我们能做完工作真是一个奇迹啊。再一想，这样真的好么？
上一个月，我们知道，公务员们每天在网上浪费一段相当长的时间。信息公开的相关法律迫使政府公开了在过去的五个月内白宫工作人员经常访问的1000家网站的列表。真是一个令人震惊的列表啊。
显然，我们交的税资助他们看乒乓球，检查开奖结果，去雅高的店，玩可以在妖精，精灵和矮人中行走的游戏，预订假期，甚至上肚皮舞的课程。
比较有吸引力的国会议员专用网站 - sexymp.co.uk 拥有21477访问量。一个叫preseed.co.uk 的网站，销售“亲密保湿”这样的东西，被访问13295次。真令人费解。
这份清单让我的上网习惯看起来非常普遍，也为在经济危机下劳民伤财的低效和无聊行为敲响了警钟。但同时也证明，我们很多人是无力抵抗互联网的诱惑的。
我曾经是一个认真和勤奋的的人，但现代科技却把我变成了一个拖拖拉拉的人。
在一分钟内，我漫无目的浏览新闻，然后我看到一个关于凯特温斯莱特的故事，用不了多久，我已经在一个网站上试图购买她的裙子。我就像掉进兔子洞里的漫游的爱丽丝一样。
反抗也随之而来：Dragons' Den的西奥已经禁止他的员工使用Facebook就像没有结局的库珀的小说一样，我想着这就是最后一页然后不停的去点下一页 - 变戏法似的 - 已经过去整整一个下午了。
已经有研究发现互联网和吸烟或酗酒上瘾类似，越是使用它，就越觉得我们需要它。
今年四月的一个研究中，一个参与者描述24小时不在线就像把自己的手砍掉似的难受，而在马里兰州的另一项研究发现，被要求不检查电子邮件或浏览互联网的人感觉烦躁，焦虑和孤立。但是，互联网不仅仅是上瘾，它侵蚀了我们的注意力，这意味着我们为分心的机会比以往任何时候都更多。
在技术作家尼古拉斯卡尔的书——谷歌让我们愚蠢？中，他认为技术已经改变了我们的大脑的工作方式。
在一个严重的上网成瘾者的书中，他写道：“我的思维方式被改变了，特别是当我阅读的时候，这种感觉更为强烈。沉浸在一本书或长篇文章中以前对我来说是很容易的，但是现在我的注意力往往在看了两三页后就开始漂移。我坐立不安，失去兴趣，然后开始找其他事情做。”“互联网的所作所为就是在侵蚀我的能力和注意力。”
我十分同意。我的注意力水平几乎从来没有达到最高的水平，但是现代科技已经让它们荡然无存。
在工作期间，不检查我的电子邮件，不去上网浏览新闻，这样的状态我只能坚持不到十分钟。
它不只是在办公时间。在晚上，我一面打电话，一面就会去浏览Amazon 和 eBay。有时我觉得已经不是我在控制互联网了，而是它在控制我。这感觉可不好。
低效的一天又结束了，我觉得疲惫，不满和厌倦，虽然我一事无成。但是我的脑袋却满满的，只不过是垃圾罢了。这样的心情和每天只能吃垃圾食品的心情是一样一样的。
所以，该怎么办？第一件事就是练习学会自控。一些专家建议，不要开溜，而是强迫自己专注于一些简单的事情。另一些人则建议使用一个鸡蛋定时器设置20分钟的时间，在这期间除了工作什么都不能做。
但是最终发现我们最缺乏摆脱网络成瘾的自律精神，所以一些公司限制员工访问某些网站。几年前，朴次茅斯市议会决定禁止其员工使用Facebook，因为他们发现自己的员工在一个月内登陆该网站270,000次，平均每个月在上面花费413小时。Dragon’s Den的西奥说，他的公司也采取了同样的措施。“毕竟，没有一个自我尊重老板允许员工整天和朋友打电话，读名人杂志，或者交流八卦。”他说。
太对了，西奥。我只希望你是我的老板，好好的逼我一把。不幸的是，我的老板是无用的 - 那是因为我是我自己的老板。按照这个情况下去，我将不得不解雇自己，或者至少得给自己一个书面警告。诚然，也可以利用有自由（MAC freedom.com）这样的软件，可以暂时切断互联网，这样你就可以做一些工作。
但这又是什么呢？我刚刚检查我的电子邮件时，朋友又发给我另一个链接。这是一个新的研究结果——工人在看网上一个有趣的片段后，会更具生产力。在哥本哈根大学的科学家发现，在互联网上浪费时间可能对工作有好处，其使得工人更专注，积极和有效的。
那我最好再看十分钟的小猫跳舞好了，完全是为了调动工作的积极性，你懂的。然后，我将开始工作……
