Google real-time Analytics

What has happened to me? I feel a nervous twitch. I feel like I’m missing something, for two seconds I can’t remember what it is. It’s like that strange feeling when you know you got something you have to do but you can’t quite remember what it is. Then I realise, it’s the internet. My phone’s battery has died, it’s left me stranded on my own to ponder, check out my environment, in all honesty i feel a little lost.

I’m stood on a speeding commuter train heading out of London, internet-less. I’ve become so accustomed to being online all day, every day that I feel a little bit weird without my smart phone crutch. Maybe my brains starting to become wired a different way, looking to monitor, survey, respond every few minutes.

Notification Society

It’s a testament to the real-time nature of the Internet that being offline for longer than a day seems like I’ve missed out on so much. I even take my iPad to meetings these days as I’ve felt that coming back from a hours meeting means my inbox must be overflowing or 1000’s of notifications and tweets have come my way.

I’m known for having more tabs open on my browser than anyone can possibly make use of, but I’m switching, monitoring and responding. Such is the way of anyone using analytics or social media tools today. Twitter, Facebook, Google +, pInterest, two email accounts and Google analytics real-time all baying for attention and flashing with notifications.

Maybe the way we operate is changing? Changing into an online validation society? Nobody has ever really wanted to login to an empty inbox unless it’s a work email but now we don’t need to keep logging in as notifications flash up on iPads and android tablets or numbers update on social network browser tabs to let us know that they need our attention.

Craving that response

We crave the notification, we update our statuses and upload our photos for social validation via comments and likes/plus 1’s. We tweet and hope for responses, after all if no one responds you feel the opposite to when they do. You keep checking, over and over, surely someone will respond…?

When someone does reply you feel validated and get a minor buzz that’ll keep you posting and keep you checking. Google real-time analytics take things the next level as you monitor in real time the effects of your tweets. Why did no one click through to your website? You monitor users finding your website via keyword searches in search engines. It’s all in real-time and very addictive.

I’m in a routine of getting up and checking my notifications every morning, I can’t really remember what life was like without this constant monitoring. What was it like when you didn’t have that thought in your mind when you wake up that you had to do something, had to respond or check to something? Were we less stressed? What effect is this having on our attention span?

Can we leave it behind?

After all this distraction in our lives shouldn’t travel be the best outlet of escapism to detox from the constant pressure to respond, check and monitor?

I’ve always been a believer in leaving technology behind when traveling, I even published an article about it – should I take my laptop traveling? Since then technology has evolved quite drastically, perhaps if I was to write the same article now I would be about smart phones and tablets rather than solely laptops.

Traveling should be about the experience but our constant need to being connected 24-7 could be damaging part of the beauty of traveling. Before I left for a two year wander around the globe I really wanted to get away from the constant connection to technology, at the time it was the constant staring at a computer screen all day and my mobile phone that I wanted to run away from. I wanted to travel to remote places knowing that in a way I was completely on my own with no connections, even if it was only for a week or two. There was a great sense of freedom.

Sometimes I do wonder how people travel yet seem to be online for more than 50% of the trip? Does this not degrade the travel experience to be sat behind a laptop screen or sat huddled in an Internet cafe when you should be out taking in the offline world? After all you travel so far to get there, it seems strange to hunt down WiFi just to get some social online validation.

Obviously some people are required to carry technology and to be online whilst they travel. Perhaps they earn a living by doing so. For these people there is little choice but for those traveling for leisure it does seem like there is a real opportunity to have a detox from their Internet intensive lives.

Technology is a wonderful tool, it helps us to communicate, educate, network, socialise and to have a voice, but how much is too much?

Would it hurt that much to leave it all behind you when you travel?