The Dark Side of digital time wasting

Lost : one incomplete Death Star.

I have lost my Tiny Death Star. I’ve been working hard on adding levels for Emperor Palpatine since December, and tonight my 75% complete moon-sized battle station disappeared off my phone.

My first thought: “All my hard work is lost!”

My second thought: “Did I just call playing a mobile game ‘hard work’? ”

My third thought: “How am I going to fill my in-between-time?”

In-between-time

I rarely do just one thing at a time, and Tiny Death Star made it worse. I was playing my game in typical situations – waiting for a friend, train or download. I never knew how much of this ‘in-between-time’ I had! I discovered a magic side street of time that I could skip down to play with Darth Vader.

Last week, on the train to work I was doing all of the following at once:

• Playing Tiny Death Star on my phone.
• Watching downloaded TV on husband’s phone. (We have one earbud each, and it’s so romantic.)
• Reading the newspaper of the passenger next to me.
• Sending text messages.

Ridiculous. This blog is about finding a balance between digital and ‘real’, however my reality is getting digitised faster than I can process.

I didn’t choose to lose my Death Star, but I’m quite relieved. I’m turning away from the Dark Side of digital time wasting, and re-joining the Rebel Alliance of reality.

Here endeth the Star Wars references. 

Here’s one I wrote earlier

How Star Wars took over my life. I used to like Star Wars quite a lot. As a young-ish urban childless New Media professional, basic Star Wars knowledge was mandatory.  We all spoke fondly of the original films, and bitched about the betrayal of the prequels.

I give up. I keep giving up. I have THIS MUCH to do each day. (Imagine me holding an over-sized hand-knitted cushion.) I have THIS MUCH time each day. (Imagine me holding a medium box of assorted supermarket chocolates.)