[iDC] Blanking________ (the desire beneath CPA...)

[Andreas Schiffler]

> There is a new psychological phenomenon emerging in this era of hyper-
> telemedia, information abundance and overload. People of all ages and
> walks of life are 'blanking'_______that is, they are shutting down or
> experiencing momentary ruptures of consciousness, or in very severe cases,
> 'blanking' sometimes lasting for days. 

While I don't agree on the negatively-charged term "overload", there is 
certainly an abundance of input these days. I'd warn though to connect 
this solely to the latest developments: Internet, Hypermedia,  Web2.0, 
etc.. These are really just elements of a general trend for "enriching" 
our environment, making things nice, designed, pretty, active, 
experiential, available, etc which has been going on for centuries.. As 
Wolfgang Welsch call it: we are living as "Homo aestheticus" these days. 
And since information is an ingredient for some people (not all of 
course) in this enrichment process, information technology plays a major 
role when we are "aestheticising through information".

Physiologically, the effect of "blanking" makes good sense though. It is 
probably comparable to the tinnitus after attending an ultra-loud rock 
concert, just at a higher level of sensory processing. Maybe it can 
compare better to the silence in the car with your friends, after an 
overloading entertainment experience of a night out (ok, ok that might 
be caused by the drugs or the beer as well). To make it a treatable 
problem sound's fishy to me ... just like ADHD is probably a big problem 
for some kids, the scope of the public treatment with pharmaceuticals is 
likely "manufactured" by the drug companies for economic purposes.

Personally, I don't blank. At least I don't recall it - which is maybe a 
function of the cause: it is supposed to be a loss of consciousness, 
isn't it. Maybe the real problem is that we are becoming aware of such 
blanking periods more often. Sorta like dreams: we all dream at night 
(scientists claim) but we don't experience these dreams necessarily. 
They disappear again into the windings of the cortex. I, for example, 
remember dreams extremely rarely. Usually only when I have a cold with 
fever spells (and bad sleep patterns). I guess my "non-blanking" has to 
do with a general sensibility to avoid such overload. A feature people 
likely develop when growing older. If I would do my programming with 
loud music, "spaghetti code" would surely be the result.

Happy New Year (... whaaat not '06, its already '07 ... s**t, must have 
blanked for a whole year. :-)

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