In the New Yorker...

[serious crayons]

I wrote an article for them once, about attention overload. I obviously didn't learn anything from the experience, because in the opening sentences I said I had 45 tabs open my computer. Nowadays I have many, many more than that. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I wrote an article for them once, about attention overload. I obviously didn't learn anything from the experience, because in the opening sentences I said I had 45 tabs open my computer. Nowadays I have many, many more than that. 

 

How on earth do you manage that many at one time?

[Front-Ranger]

My thoughts too. It would drive me crazy. I have 11 open now, and have cut myself off.

[serious crayons]

How on earth do you manage that many at one time?

Depends on what you mean by "manage." If you mean, how do you open a tab to a new article, say you're going to read it later, or maybe read a few paragraphs right away and plan to finish it later, then never look at it again, it's easy!

Many of them, of course, I do read. But unfortunately the internet has far more interesting reading material than I have time.

And I must not be the only one. Here's a post I wrote on Twitter in 2012 that has been retweeted 3,300 times.

"Like many writers, I have rituals. Before writing, I pour coffee, open the window by my desk, and attempt to read the entire internet."

This sounds self serving and I don't mean it that way, but sometimes I wonder if I'm interested in too many things.

[Jeff Wrangler]

After you read something you still leave the tab open?

Why do you all have so many? Why do you need that many open at one time?

Right now I'm on my work laptop, and I have three open--including the one where I'm writing this.

[serious crayons]

After you read something you still leave the tab open?

Why do you all have so many? Why do you need that many open at one time?

Right now I'm on my work laptop, and I have three open--including the one where I'm writing this.

No, once I've read them I close the tab. But I see links to articles all the time that look interesting. For example, just on the window I have open now (I have 12 open windows total, some dedicated to recipes or shopping ideas, some I haven't even opened in a long time for fear of the rabbit hole) I have at least 15 websites and articles related to a story I'm working on (which at the moment is about volunteering, so I have a bunch of nonprofit sites open); plus one or more articles to read for fun from the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, New York Magazine, Slate, Vanity Fair, the Star Tribune and various writers' sites; plus a few pages with useful information, like instructions for using the Fitbit I recently started wearing or tutorial videos related to watercolor painting, which I am about to resume doing.

And almost every page I look at contains one or more interesting links, either embedded in the articles or on the right rail in lists of popular stories or editors' picks.

And that's not even including Facebook and Twitter, not open at the moment although posts on those two sites generate a good portion of the open tabs.

 

[serious crayons]

I'll have to admit that as I write this it sounds like a mental disorder of some kind -- like hoarding but with less mold. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'll have to admit that as I write this it sounds like a mental disorder of some kind -- like hoarding but with less mold. 

 

But why would you keep open a tab you haven't looked at in a very long time for fear of falling down the rabbit hole?

I wouldn't call it a mental disorder, but it sounds a little bit like tearing interesting articles out of hard copies of TNY that you never get around to reading, only in a different medium.

[serious crayons]

I wouldn't call it a mental disorder, but it sounds a little bit like tearing interesting articles out of hard copies of TNY that you never get around to reading, only in a different medium.

Funny you should mention that ...  I have fewer ripped-out articles than I do tabs, at least ...

I once wrote a newspaper story about people being overwhelmed by too much to read. I found in the process of doing it that not everybody has that problem. But my magazines and books felt like way more than I could keep up with! Punchline is that this was in the early '90s -- before I was on the internet.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Funny you should mention that ...  I have fewer ripped-out articles than I do tabs, at least ...