Generation ADD – All Day Digital.

I just got home. I spent a total of five and a half hours in traffic in route from DC to my hometown in Northern VA. I listened to WTOP repeat the same news about the election about 3 times per minute. And, I know I probably bugged the hell out of the commuting “slugs,” strangers, that were in my car with me. -Nevermind them, they didn’t pay for gas and they weren’t aching in physical pain from manuevering for five and half hours in stop- and-go traffic. Why were the slugs bothered by me? Well perhaps because I am of Generation ADD. I fidgeted the entire time I was in the car. Yes. I twirled my hair. I tossed in my chair. I kicked off boots. And, I was completely engrossed in the media sources placed between my legs, then in my cup holder, then next to my hip, then dangling in my mouth. My cellphone and my ipod + FM transmitter have occupied just about every inch of the space in my car. And, my slugs could tell that I was engrossed. I tossed each one from hand-to-hand, hip-to-hip, whether it was responding rapidly to multiple text messages or switching songs on my ipod. Then, of course, I was listening to the radio, flipping stations at will. I was addicted. And the addiction is natural. What else would I have done in five-hour traffic? I’m convinced that for my generation on, that the addiction is natural. The incessant fidgeting is natural. And, it’s not going away. We are Generation ADD, simultaneously situating ourselves in its double meaning. We are the media in as much as it consumes us and we are consumed by it.