Columnist Rekha Basu has a timely reminder in a column in this morning's paper. I say "reminder" because other columnists have written the same thing after a vacation without any news sources. She writes

I was able to see clearly, after a week without it, what it is about the 24-hour news cycle — delivered on TV, online and even cell phone — that makes one so jittery. Every story is crafted to leave you with that tumultuous, "Oh My God!" feeling.

She's right. This morning I've read about Hillary Clinton's seeming lack of concern about destroying the Democrats' chances in this year's election, the bailout of the banking system and its executives but not individual borrowers, seemingly escalating fighting in Iraq, more layoffs and impending layoffs and worldwide food shortages. I'm still thinking about the PBS series Unnatural Causes that began last night. (It studies the differences between life expectancies among people living in different places, and the first episode made the point that stress hormones shorten your life.)

Basu also says

It's one thing to be a news junkie, but another to be a media addict.

Uh oh. She goes further:

What's more, if you have all the media going at the same time for long enough, it becomes hard to concentrate on any one thing for long. You develop an attention problem.

You  mean like constantly checking for e-mail and constantly checking blogs for new entries or comments? Oh, no! I'm a media addict with an attention problem and a high stress hormone level! Oh. My. God.