The central problem with the Information Age is ... information. Too much of it.

Or, to put it another way, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the couple who crashed a White House state dinner three years ago, are now officially divorced -- and I know this information.

I also know that one of the reasons for their sad demise is that Michaele allegedly had an affair with the guitarist from the band Journey.

I also know the music of Journey.

There is no way of overstating how much I wish I didn't know any of this.

I suppose there was a period when I took a small amount of pleasure in knowing who the Salahis were. Probably about a 15-minute period. I vaguely remember reading an article about their D.C. idiocy and thinking, "Huh," and enjoying thinking that.

Also: "Faithfully" is pretty good, especially when it comes on the car radio when you're driving on the highway at night.

(This publication, I hope, will post a correction tomorrow about my initially stated feelings toward Journey.)

Has it always been this way? Have people, well before smartphones or even newspapers, always had their minds cluttered with useless, possibly detrimental information?

Did our cavemen ancestors find their brains jammed with knowledge of cave paintings retelling the exploits of the Salahis of their day?

Did they think to themselves, "Man, if my brain weren't consumed with the location of every rock within a 10-mile radius, I could've been the guy who invented the wheel."

Or were they too busy running at or from woolly mammoths to think about much at all?

At the very least, every single caveman who ever existed lived his entire life without knowing that Snooki is so pregnant that she thinks she's going to "burst."

Or that there are naked photos of Prince Harry out there (which is at least better than being dressed in a Nazi costume).

Or what all the core cast members of "The Facts of Life" are now up to. (Answer: nothing special, except for the one about to appear on "Survivor." Also: Mrs. Garrett is still alive and looks great.)

Perhaps, the counterargument would go, the constant stream of information into our brains fuels us -- giving us the raw data to make more creative connections or helping us better connect with the world outside of ourselves (which, like it or not, includes the former Mr. and Mrs. Salahi).

But at some point you need to take a break -- to take that information and let your brain do something with it. Like write an article in which you make people think about the Salahis.

Lately, my going-to-sleep routine at night has been to lie in bed with my phone and furiously read as many articles as I can. This is not healthy.

Last night, as I drifted off, my last thought of the night -- of a day hopefully productively and enjoyably lived -- was about whether Michaele Salahi and the Journey guitarist are still together.

I promised myself, though, that I would never look it up. The information will, I know, appear before me sooner or later.

You may be thinking: "Well, you don't have to look at all this useless information when it does arrive, do you?"

To which my only reply is, "Well, you're looking at this useless piece of information, aren't you?"

 

Twitter: @ihavenet

 

 

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