You're criticizing a strawman. Nowhere in this article you'll find a claim that "everyone has this problem".
It just states pretty obvious facts about the combined effects of new streams of information (mail/rss feeds/twitter/facebook) and new means of accessing those streams (laptops, smartphones) which leads to a growing addiction to frequent checking those streams.
This is not a novel or controversial point. There've been many articles about this effect in the past and there will be many more in the future.
I can observe this addiction in myself, when I pull out my iPhone to check my Twitter during lunch with my coworkers. I can observe this addiction in my coworkers when I glance and their monitors when I pass by and see the browser opened on Facebook or Twitter. I can see that in people on the street, who walk looking at their iPhones or Droids. I can see that in people in cafes, drinking their lattes with a laptop lid open and browser set on YouTube. I can see that in people like myself, checking Hacker News several times a day.
There is a problem, it is widespread and there is no easy solution. That's all that article is saying.
It just states pretty obvious facts about the combined effects of new streams of information (mail/rss feeds/twitter/facebook) and new means of accessing those streams (laptops, smartphones) which leads to a growing addiction to frequent checking those streams.
This is not a novel or controversial point. There've been many articles about this effect in the past and there will be many more in the future.
I can observe this addiction in myself, when I pull out my iPhone to check my Twitter during lunch with my coworkers. I can observe this addiction in my coworkers when I glance and their monitors when I pass by and see the browser opened on Facebook or Twitter. I can see that in people on the street, who walk looking at their iPhones or Droids. I can see that in people in cafes, drinking their lattes with a laptop lid open and browser set on YouTube. I can see that in people like myself, checking Hacker News several times a day.
There is a problem, it is widespread and there is no easy solution. That's all that article is saying.