Wednesday 2 March 2011

Back Online

The internet is a strange thing, or rather human my behaviour regarding the internet is a strange thing.

I thought that I spend a lot of time on the internet and that a lot of my day’s activities revolve around the net – ie. checking email and responding to email; going thru’ my RSS Feeds and responding to various posts; searching for information on issues that were raised on blogs or in mails; online banking and personal things like family budgets, menu planning, school scheduling etc.  On an average day, I am online for at least 4 hours and if I’m not pressed to be doing other things, I can even manage 7 hours.  In this regard, I thought I would go out of my mind with boredom when our internet lines went down over a week ago.  Can you imagine my surprise when my days were just as busy and full without the net as they were when I had 24 hour online access.  I did different things – like cooking (which isn’t my favourite past time), I spent a lot of time doing school work with my children and I did lots of baking (which is my favourite past time).  I had breakfast with a friend and went out for dinner with my husband. Unfortunately, I didn’t do more running or gym work.

I had thought that I would miss the happenings in the lives of my ‘blog-friends’, but it turns out I didn’t (no offence to those whose blogs I follow).  I didn’t miss any important information that was sent by email - important interesting relevant personal stuff was communicated on the phone and the email was still there a week later.  Interesting to notice that when my inbox was so full, I cleared thru’ it a lot quicker than I do on a daily basis, no lingering or loitering when the goal is to clear the inbox. 

I am now much clearer on the purpose of the internet in my life.  It can be useful, informative and a way to connect and/or keep connected .  It can also creep into your my life and silently become all that you do.  I am now committed to not going down that road again and will only spend a max of 3 hours a day online.

Thanks for reading my ramblings, I hope it gives you some food for thought.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree!! The internet while great is a HUGE TIME WASTER!

JK said...

It is amazing how we can fill our time with wonderful, productive things when we can't get online. Good for you!

Kate Geisen said...

Life definitely expands to fill whatever openings we have. And so, it seems, does the internet. Your week off and new commitment sound great. :)

Johann said...

Agree 100% with you. I work in IT so I spend all my hours at work online as well. It is definitely great to get away from cyber life sometimes.