Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price

I was reading the New York Times on my iPad at breakfast this morning when I saw the above photo and died laughing.

The article is really interesting and talks about our addiction to gadgets causing problems with our ability to focus, which then hurts deep thought and creativity – a lot of the stuff covered in You 2.0. They even cite a UC Irvine study, which I’m pretty sure is the study done by Gloria Mark, who’s in the film.

One thing I’ve noticed is a lot of the gadget addicts, or at least people who can’t handle the balance between interacting with the real world and virtual one (gadget etiquette), seem to be adults in their 40s and 50s.

Ever since my father got a Blackberry he’s always checking email (and he still talks really loud on the phone in restaurants, holding the mic in front of his mouth like he’s on a walkie-talkie). It’ll get to the point where his fiancé and I will tell him to put the damn thing down.

I’m not saying I don’t text or email at dinner, but I’ll only do it if I’m left out of the conversation and I’ll stop mid-text if someone starts talking to me.

And as for multi-tasking, my mom claims she can multi-task, like talk on the phone while writing an email, but it’s total BS and I’ve called her out on it. She’ll be on the phone with me and I’ll quiz her on what I just said and she won’t remember.

So is that age just a rough transitional generation that’s figuring out how to incorporate the use of gadgets in life while still maintaining human interaction, while my generation is used to having smart phones and can better handle the two?

By the way, this is my first fully iPad generated post, and it was a great and easy experience.

Writing on a manual [typewriter] makes you slower in a good way, I think. You don’t revise as much, you just think more, because you know you’re going to have to retype the entire fucking thing. Which is a big stop on just slapping anything down and playing with it.
- Will Self

Reading the title you can probably guess what this program can do, or more what it can’t do. The above quote got me thinking about the process of writing on a typewriter and I was surprised to not be able to find any program that could mimic that interaction.

So on a whim I ran with this weird idea and turned to Elance, where I found Denis Sokol in Russia and he created this program.

It’s super, super simple and basic. All you can do is type in one direction. You can’t delete, you can’t copy, you can’t paste. You can save and print. And you can switch between black text on white and green on black; full screen and window.

Download Here

The program runs through Java, so it should work on any operating system, but make sure you have the latest version of Java here. Feel free to share, modify, and post the program however you like. All I ask is that you please reference this site with a link either directly to this post or the site (http://www.lifehackingmovie.com).

Hope you enjoy and let me know what are you thoughts are on using it.

This software is licensed under the CC-GNU GPL version 2.0 or later.

Photo by MARK EDWARDS

Yep, this Saturday I’m flying from Ft. Lauderdale to Port-au-Prince, and I’ll be there for about 5 days.

I only found out about this last week. I was at a meeting for a service group I’m in, when someone I’ve talked to maybe once before started telling me about how he wants to build a clinic in Haiti and film a documentary about it, but doesn’t know the first thing about filmmaking. So he was wondering if I could go with him on this preliminary trip to help him set up the documentary for the summer.

Enjoying an adventure, I of course said yes (to my family’s dismay). And yes, I’m going to Haiti with an acquaintance. Just goes to prove Malcolm Gladwell and the power of weak ties.

So I’m going to do some filmming, get this documentary set up, and of course (and the biggest personal draw) take lots of pictures. I know this will be an eye opening experience.

I’ll be posting more on preparing for the trip, but all I can say now is my shoulder is pretty sore from the vaccines I got today. And of course I’ll be tweeting while there, so follow me.

Let me know if you have any Haiti/remote traveling tips.

I was at one of the nearby cafes last Friday where I noticed this sign. “Internet-Free Zone on Weekends.” I wonder if this is to encourage people to read or socialize on the weekends. Or maybe something more practical, such as not having students hog a table for the whole day. Either way I thought it was interesting and I haven’t seen it anywhere else.

I had briefly done some browsing on Elance for transcription services and it all seemed pretty prohibitive – about $15-$25 an hour, which for 20 hours and counting gets pretty pricey.

I made it through 3 hours of transcribing before the carpal tunnel set in and I gave Elance another look. This time instead of searching for someone I posted my job.

Filling out the job post was like any other eBay/Craiglist posting. I wrote as detailed a description I could think of, set my price range, how long I wanted the post to be up and some other details, and then set it free.

Within an hour I got a bid. Elance makes it easy to communicate through their site, either through their secure message board which offers a little more legitimacy than email, or chat.

You can also rate the bids and write notes for yourself. Overall a very nice interface.

Within 24 hours I had 7 bids ranging from $100 to about $700 (funny becase my price range was $50-$500). Of course I’m always weary about super low bids, but this was partly an experiment so I awarded Mr. $100 bid the job.

I’m using Elance’s Escrow service, so they’ve taken the money and are holding it until the job is complete.

So right now as I type, someone in some part of the world is transcribing David Allen or Tim Ferriss.

We’ll see if the $100 was worth the time and effort I saved.

Anyone have any Elance stories or tips for outsourcing?

It’s extremely ironic how I’m making a documentary on being organized and productive while lately life has been going 160 MPH and I’m just trying to hold on.

This has been about the most disorganized I’ve been in a long time. My room looks like one of the bazillion hurricanes hit it, I still have 80 unanswered emails and about twice that I need to send.

Plus, you know, I need to make a movie. GTD hasn’t been Getting Things Done but Get Through ‘Dis.

Interning and Teaching Assisting have been eating most of my time while I try to fit editing and some more shooting around that. Plus a few other minor things, such as figuring out what direction I want my life to take in a few months when I graduate.

I’m trying to get back in the habit of getting everything out of my head and onto a list. Funny thing I haven’t quite caught onto yet – if I write a few things I need to do for the day, I’ll generally get it done. I just haven’t repeated that action.

I’m not too worried – I did a decent room clean today. But in a way that was some productive procrastination because I should have been editing. Going to the dollar theater for Wanted was definitely procrastination.

I need to watch my own film. But first I need to make it. I’ll just add it to the list.

Photo by addicted Eyes.

• Clean desktops and room. Everything has a place or get rid of it.
• Paint Room
• Go Paperless (as much as possible)
• Get task systems working again

I’ll be posting the progress.