I’ve finally worked it out. My affliction, that is.
I was feeling left out. I had nothing to self-diagnose on Wikipedia.
But now I know why and I don’t feel so unusual any more.
I have ATADAS Disorder.
The Always-Thinking Attention-Deficit Attention-Seeking Disorder.
The king of new millennium disorders.
It’s quite serious. I don’t know what to take for it… yet.
I’ve made the first step though: I’ve admitted it. Maybe you should, too.
Here’s the lowdown…
1. Always Thinking (AT):
Can you ever stop thinking? Like, ever? No? Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but you have one-third of the illness… yes, that’s right: 33% of ATADAS. Me – I came up with this post while I was at the gym… riding a bike… with a book and pen in hand. I also came up with an idea for another social experiment for people without a blog, a post idea about the world through the eyes of Twitter, and kept an eye on how far I went (6km). That was in 20 minutes of not thinking. I mean, I was so not thinking that I was in the zone and just… thinking. You do this, too, right?
2. Attention Deficit (AD):
Do you sometimes walk to work and drift so far into an idea that you forget you’re actually walking? Me either. Like, as if you would. But, say you did. And, then, say you were presenting and forgot what you were saying because you had crazy diagram porn daydreams floating around in your brain? Only you kept talking because… well, that’s just what you do. And nobody in the room knew. Ummm… OK. So sometimes this sort of stuff happens so now I think I’m clocking 66% of the disease. How about you?
3. Attention Seeking (AS):
I’m a compulsive communicator. I used to write diaries as a 5 year old. My dad made me when we went to Disneyland. The teacher looked at them but really it was for me. But being on Twitter, blogging and all this stuff… I think I’m turning into a full-time Attention Seeker. I mean, I love writing, and if it wasn’t this I’d be writing about something else. But this is fun. Still, I think I’m peaking at 100% of this new-found rotten disorder… and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s great!
How about you?
We online types need new disorders to feel normal, surely? Make one up or tell me I’m not unusual. Maybe Wikipedia needs to add this serious illness to its cachet of well-written knowledge.
Moral support rolls in threes: My A.T.A.D.A.S.
Update 9 Feb 2009 – Within days of this going live, a few other things popped up:
- via @tiphereth Digital Overload is Frying Our Brains at Wired
- via @ericscheid Is technology eating our brains? WA Today
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