Pop-up, Pop-under, Pop-in

My pop-up blocker isn't working.  I notice that I continue to be tracked by sites I've visited.  Possibly the unpurchased items in my shopping cart cause a counter-block to my pop-up blocker.  "She loaded the cart and is now fair game" is the possible behind the scenes tech-to-tech communication taking place. Sometimes I will add an item to the shopping cart and click out, hoping to be offered a discount or free shipping to complete the purchase.  It all seems like a game.  The rules change as the game continues.  Points and purchases are made, paid, promised, and sometimes lost.  All of this transpires while I'm supposed to be working, only to be interrupted by a pop-up.

You may know that I'm obsessed and play with tech terms as an overlay for personal experience.  Most everyone knows what a pop-up is, but here is Wikipedia's definition.  "Pop-ups are forms of online advertising on the World Wide Web.  A pop-up is a graphical user interface (GUI) display area, usually a small window that suddenly appears in the foreground of the visual interface.  The pop-up window containing an advertisement is usually generated by JavaScript.  They can also be generated by other vulnerabilities/security holes in browser security."  Pop-under is new to me, at least the term is.  Wikipedia's definition continues.  "A variation on the pop-up window, the pop-under advertisement, opens a new browser window under the active window.  Pop-unders do not interrupt the user immediately, but appear when the user closes the covering window, making it more difficult to determine which website created them."  Wonder if you need a specific pop-under blocker.  The game continues.

Obviously, I get derailed at times.  We all do, whether it's a pop-up or pop-under distracting us from our goals.  Lately, I've been observant of the "pop-ins."  The pop-ins are what I call an "intrusion of thought" that happens as I'm focused and busy.  The thought has a different mental texture or feel, very similar to a "small window that suddenly appears" in front of my normal thinking/active window.  

In the past, I would click out of the pop-in because I felt I needed to complete a task and be productive - a straight line is the best course to a goal, we've all been told.  Now, I pay attention.  As I thought further about this, a pop-in would not pop in if I had not initiated the connection or "visited the site," possibly while imagining or playing on the site of a new idea.  On some level, I must be engaged.  Maybe a pop-in isn't a distraction, but a direction with another means to benefit an outcome.  Maybe there isn't a straight line to an intended goal. Maybe the pop-in is more practical than first considered.  And maybe, just maybe it offers something more significant than the intended purpose.  After playing around with pop-ins for some time, I've found this to be true.  I'm now wondering about pop-unders.  Do they surface as we dream?  Again, the game continues. And yes, there's a pop-up on this web page. 

The blocks are off, and the SEARCH is on.  Join me.