The Behavioral Study of Internet Downloads

Wow. This is shockingly reflective. I happen to be in a deeply reflective mood today. Well, not of myself of course. Of other things. Must say that I am not in any sort of dire need to self-indulge and talk about feelings tonight or any form of emotional debauchery for that matter. Feelings are boring. Feelings are intangible. Intangibly insignificant.

For obvious reasons, you and I, we are both here. It's a World Wide Web full of Hyper-Text Markup Language and Active Server Pages. You're hooked and you can't live without it. Probably. And our imaginary friend for adults is oh-so-kind as to let us meet here, with you random very few who read my random very intrepidly shameless ramblings from time to time. And it doesn't matter if you're an atheist because no names are named here.

I am going to take you on a journey of maybe chronologically assembled events, possibly from the time you click that one apparently embossed icon on your desktop or wherever you put all your shortcut keys. Subject: duh, not you.

The first thing I do is to check my e-mail. Click. Junk mail, junk mail, oh, what have we here - 3 million free flights, more junk mail, time to pay my bills, junk mail again, will Facebook ever stop sending me notifications? And on rare occasions in my monotonous life, I get an actual electronic mail from an actual person. None of that computer-generated crap. I keep what I want to revisit, and trash out the rest. And sometimes I regret for trashing them.

Ah, an instant message from an acquaintance. Oh, you want to know how I am? Today, of all days? Why, hello there. I am fine. Thank you. Now will you please just be a Yenta somewhere else and go back to minding your own business Talk to me when you really want to talk to me instead of using me to hide your pathetic loneliness. Boy, am I grumpy.

And then I Facebook. No hassle there, user ID and passwords have already been saved. Farmville invites, Yoville gifts, please spare me. Again, I delete what I don't like - same as yesterday, and the days before that. Ooh, Cafe World! Let's whip up something. Something that takes 12 hours to cook so I can serve it the minute I wake up tomorrow morning. Voodoo Chicken Salad maybe? Then I save progress and let the game run by itself.

Moving on to Myspace. Click, click, click on Music. I am feeling a little Alternative tonight. Let's listen to maybe Three Days Grace. Pretty well played. So I open a new tab on my browser.

Isohunt, look out. Pop some keywords into the search field. My, my. Choices, choices. Pause for just a split second to think if my Utorrent is overworking on the downloads. Check. Wow. Dexter, Bones, Madmen, Criminal Minds, Weeds, Private Practice, Grey's Anatomy. Shoot. But I cannot resist clicking one of every title I see. Okay, this one has a song that's already in that previous one I clicked. Let's forgo this one for now. Save as bookmark.

Oh, hello there, Questionable Content. Any episodes today? Loading, loading. Yes. Short read and quickly dismissed laugh. Find Twitter icon. Click. Whoa, this Spinzer is totally hogging my entire screen. Tweet something invisible, maybe tonight someone will notice my message and actually get it. Apparently, I get cryptic when I get to say just 10 words or less. Stalk some people. And I'm done for the night.

Be thankful. Or not, whatever keeps your blithe and merry. You have just seen my psychotic behavior on the Internet. And I don't just mean the stalker bit. I do most my stalking on notebooks, usually consisting names and hearts of all shapes and sizes and colors around them.

Well, the point is. From the very second you log on to anywhere, to do anything, and I really do mean anything at all, you are presented with options. You make decisions, probably of very tiny consequence (seriously, what do you have to lose if you don't accept the Kung Pao Stir Fry - it's virtual anyway), or you make a huge impact on someone else's life by say, telling your best friend that her boyfriend is cheating on her. With you.

I'm extremely curious. What influences all these decisions and choices? I have a few theories of my own. And I think they only make sense to me. Sorry, I'm not feeling any more of that generosity of sharing personal information. Maybe next time, when the fountain of eternal youth is built.

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In the meantime, here's a piece of my playlist. It's a bit long, I know. But it's worth it. I especially liked the beginning.


The Maine - Into Your Arms