Selectitis
28 Apr 2006 by Chris N
When people watch me browsing they think I’m weird – even when I’m not on hatsofmeat.com – because my name is Chris and I am a selecting-things-on-the-screen addict.
When I’m reading something on the web I compulsively select and deselect text with the mouse. I’ll click and drag to highlight from the bottom of a paragraph, all the way up to the top. Then I’ll click elsewhere to clear the selection, click and drag from the top of the paragraph to the bottom, lather, rinse, and repeat about fifty times.
The select-itis does not stop there. Give me a windows desktop and a slightly distracted mind and I’ll easily spend ten minutes clicking and dragging to bring up that little lasso, making the little icons go all blue and then back to normal. My poor iconic fools, behold the selectifying power of my mighty mouse and weep!
I can’t stop. I’ve been doing it whilst writing this. Is it ny hands trying to keep themselves occupied when they’re not flying over the keys? Is it some deep psychological need to make everything… turn… blue? Is it something that always annoys Daz when he’s looking at my screen? (yes to that last one). I don’t know if anyone else has select-itis, or any similar afflictions, but whilst I’m waiting to find out I’m off back to my PHP code for a bit more click, drag, click… click, drag, click…
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Blimey, I thought it was just me. The number of times guys in my team moan because I have this habit of selecting any text in a mail or doc when I’m reading it. Hats of Meat though I think requires some serious counselling. I wonder what old Siegman would have made of that
Well Chris, you never stop amazing me… or should i say unnerving me, hatsofmeat is definitely different. Also perhaps you wouldn’t be complaining about RSI if you stopped clicking, dragging, clicking…
I on the other hand have little patience for my PC I just want to find the info and get on with the work, no time for selectitis, so when it freezes or generally doesn’t do what i want I tend to shout at it or bang on it – guess what, it makes no difference!
I have just been caught by Jonathan Bowers high-lighting the text as I read the blog. He asked me if I was doing it deliberately as the blog is about this very topic, but I had to own up, I am guilty too!
Guys, if you start shadowing your closest and dearest constantly, to the point of extreme annoyance, or start to forget what you last said, start worrying. Repetitive actions like highlighting text, memory loss and constantly following people about, are all signs of dementia. Then again, having to spend 5 days a week working with you lot is enough to drive me mad!