A Bad Case of WWW-TMI

                                                 Illustration: Annie Turpin

No more, please, I can't take it. It's too much, way too much. I don't need to know. Actually, I don't even want to know. The World Wide Web has ensnared us all, and to what end? What good does it do me, or anyone, to absorb the details of the latest mass shooting, the latest staff departure from the White House, the latest epithets hurled by one politician at another, or how Katy Perry looks in a bikini? (FYI, she rocks it.)

One is probably wondering and might ask, "So why do you keep looking, Andrea?" Good question. The simple answer, and it's a bleak one, is that I am addicted, like the rest of my family. We are all Internet junkies, my son and husband being far worse than I. Together the three of us clock many hours surfing the web, scrolling through Facebook, seeking explanations for strange ailments, checking our email, watching videos on YouTube and playing games. My husband claims that occasionally he is learning something new or doing work, and my son actually is often doing work since he runs a few  entrepreneurial businesses that rely on constant communication between several parties. But still, give it a rest I say.

I have tried to kick the habit and failed. I quit smoking cold turkey --not smoking cold turkey, but smoking, cold turkey) many years ago and it was a cinch: I just stopped buying cigarettes. But I seem powerless to stop logging on each day for my world transfusion. I'm sure it does tremendous damage in many ways, almost as much as smoking. I wonder, is WWW-TMI ever fatal?

I hope I quit before my head explodes. (See illustration.)