Cameron: Online world has us hooked

You’ve probably heard the acronym TMI.

In case you haven’t, it means “Too Much Information,” and it used to enter normal conversation only when Aunt Bertha insisted on describing every last detail of her spleen surgery.

Unfortunately, Aunt Bertha (figuratively speaking) is now everywhere in society — and we’re all being force-fed words, phrases, ideas, beliefs and ideas by the thousands.

Hell, never mind “thousands.” Millions.

And this landslide of crap certainly isn’t limited to anyone’s spleen these days.

Although...

I’m sure there’s a site somewhere on the web where a professional (lol) or a guy in his mom’s garage can explain exactly how to remove your own spleen to save on medical bills.

In fact, there’s surely a site on which you can find anything in the universe — plus well-meaning advice on what to do with it, understand it, get rid of it, embrace it, meditate on it, yada, yada.

WE ARE now addicted to all this nonsense — not just taking it in, but doling it out.

Social media is consuming us, not the other way around.

Consider: Facebook alone costs employers about $900 billion per year in wasted time — and that’s assuming internet junkies spend just 20 minutes on the site each day and are making only $7.25 per hour.

I didn’t just pull those figures out of the air. They’re adjusted from Facebook’s 2012 IPO filing — and by the way, that $900 billion of dead time doesn’t even include mobile use.

Facebook had 800 million users in 2012. There are now 1.6 billion.

The company had “only” 100 million users at the end of 2008, so using those 20 minutes and the minimum wage calculation, the social network has occupied enough of our time to inhibit more than $3 trillion in hypothetical labor since then.

I can hear you saying, “Well, then, just don’t go on Facebook.”

That’s all well and good — assuming you can convince those 1.6 billion people to quit cold turkey — but even then you’d still be swallowed up.

Face it: Very few people these days can avoid the internet entirely — and once you open an email account or buy anything online, you will be buried in the avalanche of junk.

I avoid it as much as possible — considering that I’m a journalist, after all — yet just in the past few days, I’ve received unsolicited emails suggesting how I can encrypt my entire life, how “these 62 websites” can make me smarter, why I should listen to “27 podcasts to change your life,” and my favorite ...

An offer from a site called the “Barefoot Writer” to send me a prompt every day for curing writer’s block.

BASICALLY, we’re all hooked to the net unless we choose to disconnect from society entirely — and very few people have the means and will to do that.

My main complaint with this “online life” is that huge institutions share information about us routinely.

For instance, if you play one round of golf and pay for it with a credit card, you will be deluged with golf-related email offers. Dozens per week.

Same thing if you ever buy a stock, or for that matter ...

Buy anything.

That gigantic, wired-up world out there therefore knows you, assumes that it has a sense of your buying habits, and thus fires material at you with the speed of an automatic weapon.

The problem isn’t any one of these email blasts. It’s the monstrous total.

Studies have proven that we’ll all look at a few, at the very least, and waste time doing it.

That time is money. And diddling on the internet means LOTS of money.

You really should think about whether you can afford it. Like, before your boss makes the decision for you.

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Steve Cameron is a special assignment reporter for The Press. Reach Steve via email at scameron@cdapress.com.