Short and Sweet

No, no.  Not me.  I'm not short and sweet.  I'm tall and more than a little bitter.  I'm referring to websites, this time.  I think I suffer from internet-induced ADD (no 'H', tho.  I'm not hyperactive.  Hyperactivity assumes there is at least activity). 

I feel calm and at peace when I am visiting a website that is fairly linear.  I can start at the top and work my way down.  Then I can look at happy little tabs from left to right.  I don't need a map to get around or a stack of post-it notes to remind me where I was or where I may want to go, next.  If there are too many links and branches, I get lost and over-stimulated and eventually shut down the whole damned computer. 

Does this ever happen to you?

Scene:  You're at your computer, looking at a website or reading an article.  You're calm, relaxed, reading.  And then there is a sentence or a word that is blue and underlined right in the middle of what you're reading.  Oh, you know what that is.  It's A LINK!  The anxiety starts to build a little bit.  What should you do?  What should you do?  Finish reading what you've started?  You know you want to get to the end of what you're reading.  But that blue, underlined text taunts you.  "Click me!  Click me!  Here I am!  Click me!  Click here!!!  Hey!  Hey!  HEEEEEEY!!!!"  You try to ignore that blue, blue text.  You keep reading.  You're old school and you have been trained to finish what you've started.  But that link calls to you.  You're still reading, but you're not really absorbing what you're reading anymore because instead you're OBSESSING about that link.  So you rush to the end.  On your way to the bottom of the page, there is another link.  Oh no!  What are you going to do now?  Now there's TWO links (or more) for you to follow up with.  And you know damn well that each of those links will contain MORE LINKS!  It's gone viral!  You're desperately clicking around, being redirected there, are you sure you want to leave here?  Click here to go back.  Go back where????  Where did you start?  Did you take notes before you clicked away???  Where are you?

You're in Oz, now.  Just Click (your heels) three times to get (redirected) Home.  Wherever the hell that is.

So.  Does that ever happen to you?  No?  It's just me?  I need stronger meds, don't I.  Fair enough.

-B(Sting)