Freedom
Friday's Wall Street Journal includes a fascinating book review of Is The Internet Changing the Way You Think?
One theme emerges....Precisely becasue there are such vast stores of information on the Internet, the ability to carve out time for uninterrupted, concentrated thought may prove to be the most improtant skill that one can hone...."Attention is a finite commodity [writes philosopher Thomas Metzinger], and is absolutely essential to living a good life."
Essential to living a good life? Heck, paying attention for extended periods of time is essential to holding down a job.
I'm no philosopher, but--and I'm about to do the nicest thing that anyone's done for you all day--I'll let you in on a secret. I've solved the problem. Tempted, as I constantly am, to look at sports scores, or check my email, or--yes! I'll admit it!--to see what's happening on Ricochet when I ought to be reading or writing or otherwise performing productive labor, I've found the cure. The solution. The panacea.
And it only costs ten bucks.
Go to this website and download "Freedom"--and from then on you too will be able, when you must, to turn the Internet off.
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Comments :
Re: Freedom
Hm. Well I sure hope most folks ignore this suggestion of yours. Something tells me that this could be bad for business!
Dec '10
Re: Freedom
Peter will be back in around eight hours to tell us about new software that allows you to listen to the Podcast with the volume turned off.
Jun '10
Re: Freedom
...but the internet is a great place to buy all the new books that you'll never read. A real time-saver there.
Re: Freedom
Were I to activate Freedom I would certainly become a danger to myself and others. Once the withdrawal symptoms hit--after, oh, about 15 minutes or so--I can see myself knocking over an elderly gentleman and snatching his iPhone to catch a blissful glance at Ricochet.
I think I prefer Rob Long's method for avoiding Internet distraction, which Peter wrote about over at NRO two years ago.
Sep '10
Re: Freedom
If withdrawal symptoms ever get too hard to take, send me twenty bucks and I'll tell you how to turn Freedom off again.
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 10:44amRe: Freedom
Peter, are you mad? What exactly do you think our business model is here?
Aug '10
Re: Freedom
I don't need the Internet to ruin my concentration; my nine month old does the job just fine.
Jul '10
Re: Freedom
If I use this, will You reduce My Ricochet fee by $1.1566666666666............. ?
Sep '10
Re: Freedom
People who want to keep their online lives under control should read David Allen's Getting Things Done. I also use Evernote and GTDAgenda as web based software tools to keep my 9 lives under control at all times.
And one tip -- if you have a BlackBerry, just turn it face down for 1 or more hours at a time and deactivate the ring tones so you can get work done.
May '10
Re: Freedom
I would look at the site Peter, but alas I reached the end of the Internet when I got to:
http://www.pmorg.net/end.html
Do read the error messages, and they are quite humorous.
Good G-D, perhaps Gen Y can get back to having real lives and relationships with people, and not ones lived vicariously via Facebook.
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 6:35pmMay '10
Re: Freedom
Gee, I just turn off my computer and walk away. Is there something wrong with me?
Jul '10
Re: Freedom
Peter, you've at least one supporter.
I don't use "freedom" and I can't shut down the interweaves at work. I need them to make order decisions.
Nevertheless, I am a firm believer that "multi-tasking" is an excuse to do several things badly. And for those prone to procrastination, surfing is the bane of productivity.
Jul '10
Re: Freedom
Nov '10
Re: Freedom
Peter, thank you--I've been looking for something like this. I will go and check it out now.
Jul '10
Re: Freedom
I've had Freedom for a long time now. Regrettably, I've found an amazingly easy way to have freedom from Freedom* and I'm right back where I was before.
*Don't turn it on.
Oct '10
Re: Freedom
If it were that easy, we wouldn't have the word 'procrastinate' in the English language.