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The modern age is beset in all direction by distractions. Constant tweets, texts, email, a litany of screens to stare at and the revolving door of pop culture drama have arguably fractured our minds beyond the capacity for rational thought. Information overloads abound. The result is a world where it is increasingly difficult to do nothing, to just sit in quiet and relax. But a new service is offering away to unplug and disregard the cacophony of the internet age…the only problem is you’ll need to use the internet to get to it.

As Mashable reports, Do Nothing for Two Minutes, challenges visitors to sit for a full two minutes without touching their keyboard or mouse. The site punishes those who can’t keep their hot little hands of the keys with a big red “Fail”, and rewards those patient enough to make it through the exercise with an option to share it with friends.  While you can still check your phone as the clock is ticking down that would be cheating, and kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise, don’t you think?

The site was created by Alex Tew, who also innovated the dollar a pixel ad campaign that earned him over enough money to put himself through college on his Million Dollar Homepage  in 2005.  

In an interview with TechCrunch, Tew said, “I had been thinking how we spend every waking minute of the day with access to an unlimited supply of information, to the point of information overload. I also read somewhere that there is evidence that our brains are being re-wired by the internet, because we get a little dopamine kick every time we check our e-mail or Twitter or Facebook (News - Alert) and there’s a new update. So we’re all developing a bit of ADD which is probably not great in terms of being productive.”

While it the site may add to visitors’ relentless dependence on the internet, at least it encourages them to tune out and relax for a few minutes and hopefully offer some semblance of refreshment in the deafening web environment.

Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Chris DiMarco