Monkey Mind
There's a particular kind of mental exhaustion that defines our era. You know the feeling—that scattered, fragmented state where your attention ping-pongs between notifications, messages, and an endless scroll of content. Your mind behaves like a monkey swinging through trees, never landing, never settling, always reaching for the next branch. In this day and age, with limited focus and constant distraction, being present and centered feels less like a natural state and more like an achievement.
What We've Lost in the Exchange
Modern technology has given us miracles. The internet allows us to communicate across the globe instantaneously, to access humanity's accumulated knowledge, to maintain relationships across continents. These are genuine marvels.
But every transaction has two sides, and we're only beginning to calculate what we've paid. The cost has been steep, measured in units of attention and presence—the very currencies that make life feel lived rather than merely endured.
The assault is relentless: advertisements engineered to hijack our attention, notification bells designed with the same psychological principles as casino slot machines, inboxes flooded beyond any reasonable person's capacity to process. Clickbait headlines exploit our curiosity like a weakness. Auto-playing videos consume our time in increments small enough to seem harmless but large enough to add up to days, weeks, years. And underneath it all, FOMO—the fear of missing out—whispers its poison, suggesting that wherever we are, whatever we're doing, something better is happening elsewhere.
The Fantasy of Disconnection
Sometimes it feels good to step back, to get away from all of it. I find myself daydreaming about alternative arrangements. What if I lived in a bunker or far in the woods, connected to civilization by nothing more than a dial-up connection? I'd sync my messages once a day, on my schedule, on my terms. Or imagine a courier arriving at dawn, dropping off and picking up thumb drives—a sneakernet as my gateway to the world. Physical. Deliberate. Slow.
These fantasies aren't about becoming a hermit. They're about regaining sovereignty over my own attention.
What Asynchronous Communication Gives Back
This is what asynchronous communication allows: a space to breathe, an opportunity to reclaim your attention from the systems that have monetized it.
When communication isn't happening in real-time, everything shifts.
You engage on your own terms, according to your own schedule. No one else's urgency becomes your crisis. No one else's availability dictates your responsiveness. You participate when you're ready, when you have the mental space, when you can bring your full self to the exchange.
You have time to reflect before you write. Instead of reacting, you can respond. Instead of speed, you can offer thoughtfulness. Your communication can emerge from a place of consideration rather than compulsion.
Your interactions become more selective and more meaningful. When communication requires intention rather than impulse, the trivial filters itself out. You choose who you communicate with. The conversations that remain tend toward substance over superficiality, depth over distraction.
Tyranny of Instant Messaging
I've come to view instant messaging as fundamentally incompatible with the kind of life I want to live. That's why I prefer email and forums—they don't demand immediate response, don't create artificial urgency, don't punish you for thinking before typing.
Instant messaging is a liability for your attention. It fragments your day into useless shards, creates an expectation of constant availability, and makes the kind of deep, focused work that produces anything worthwhile nearly impossible.
You don't feel obligated to respond immediately just because you see someone typing and you know they're expecting an immediate response. That pressure alone makes real thought almost impossible.
I'd probably get rid of my phone entirely if it weren't for the camera, the GPS, and having a way to call for help in case of an emergency. Everything else? Increasingly feels like a trap I'm paying monthly fees to remain caught in.
Using Technology on Our Terms
Maybe the real question isn't whether technology is good or bad—it's whether we're using it, or it's using us.
It's important for us to set boundaries with technology. These tools can be helpful, genuinely so. But we need to use them in ways that are healthy for us mentally, that support rather than undermine our wellbeing. Otherwise, technology doesn't enhance our lives—it colonizes them.
A life well lived is a life lived with intention and purpose. It's not a life swayed by notification bells, not a life lost in a constant stream of meaningless ones and zeros. It's a life where you decide what deserves your attention, where you allocate that most precious resource deliberately rather than letting it be strip-mined by apps designed to maximize engagement metrics.
Asynchronous communication isn't a complete solution, but it's a start. It's a way of saying: my attention is mine to give, not yours to take. My time is not infinitely divisible. My presence is not always available.
The messages can wait. The notifications can accumulate. And in that breathing room, that space between stimulus and response, we might rediscover what it actually feels like to be fully here, fully present, fully human.
