Get home, take off shoes and jacket, go to bedroom and switch socks with crocs (I wear crocs with leather, get over it) and top off my deodorant, go to study, turn on computer, spend next 3-5 hours online, eat, spend rest of night online. I often spend about 6 hours online in one day.
So you may wonder what I do during this time. A lot of nothing. I currently have 26 tabs open and am doing nothing of any value in any of them.
Here's a list of the tabs I have open right now:
Google finances
BBC news
BBC iPlayer
#uksnow map
2 blogger tabs
ticket booking site
4 facebook tabs
2 twitter tabs
Google reader
Google mail
Google wave
hit counter for my blog
Hotmail
youtube
wifi router, so if wifi goes down I don't have to take 8 steps to turn it off and on
2 lamebook tabs
4 assorted game sites
So overall a whole lot of nothing. I spend all my time online, avoiding real human interaction. Though to be fair I wouldn't be getting any more interaction if I never went online.
Thinking about my internet dependence I've come up with a test for myself: Go a week without the internet.
So starting tomorrow I will not go online for one week. No facebook, no email, no MSN, no wikipedia, nothing. Some of my school work requires the internet, so I'm going put it as no internet at home, as this post is about free time anyway. You might be wondering about how I'll blog without using the internet. I've thought this through and I'll write up a post (probably a progress report) then get a sibling to post it.
Of course I've gone for longer without the internet, mainly on holidays. But that's not the same as regular free time is it, and it's not voluntary. Choosing to under normal circumstances is very different.
My main fear is having to go through a week of facebook updates, as I usually don't go more than two days without checking it as it really builds up despite my meagre number of friends (purposefully low, I try to keep it as close to 69 as possible. What? I'm not allowed to have the occasional glint of immature humour) and I always feel the need to read every one.
I also got a request to give an update on my book status and it's more or less still in pre development stage but maybe I'll get to do some next week.
So, goodbye internet
1 comment:
Lol, will definitely be interesting to see how you spend your time instead of internet. I also spend way too much time online - mainly reading blogs (it's addictive) until I realise that I haven't done anything else for weeks. Anyway, my point - when I stop going online for a little while I find I reach a point where I don't care about going online anymore and I have to force myself to turn it on (of course, once it's on again, the cycle starts again). Hope you have (had, by the time you read this) a good week not staring at a computer screen.
Post a Comment