Saturday, October 31, 2009

Wandering mind on a Saturday

My work consists of spending a lot of time in front of the computer. Or sit in on different meetings. (This week I did, however, leave the office to go "sightseeing" with one of my colleagues. We took a car and drove for twenty minutes to check out a library and take pictures of trees in a forrest. A most exciting afternoon for me...)

I do spend time on the computer in the evenings and on weekends but I limit myself. Partly because I need to do other things, partly because of my boyfriend and the attention I want to give him and our life together, and partly because I know I can get way too involved in the "fake world" of Internet communities.

I email friends. I spend time writing in my blogs. I read others' as well. I have an account on Ravelry and I spend on average fifteen minutes there every day. I'm a member of a forum with some of my knitting friends (I'm one of the least active on it). I post pictures on Flickr and check out my friends' contributions.

I don't do Twitter. I don't have an account on Facebook. I don't join discussions on Ravelry or participate in the forums. I don't get involved with people or in groups on Flickr.

My two main reasons to stay away from Facebook and Twitter are my need of privacy and my fear of getting too involved. I had a couple of years, while being a student, in which I spent way too much time in the computer lab socializing on chats and forums. I knew the names of the security guards that came on nightly rounds to check the university premises. They knew mine.

I had a lot of fun during these years, and I met people I'd never meet without the Internet; the short twin from Stockholm, the British girl who lived in Gothenburg, the guy who looked like Kalle on the kaviartubes and the swimmer who had a sick dad. But... It was tough on my life in general. I made my Internet friends a priority over my other friends. And my family. And my studies. And I knew I wasn't doing anything good when I started to lie to people around me so they wouldn't know exactly how much time I spent in the computer lab or where I was spending the weekend.

Things changed about 6 years ago, and I dramatically cut down on my Internet time. I still keep in touch with some of my Internet friends from "back then" (crrly and monaihallen to mention two) but most of the relationships I had with people faded and vanished.

Now I'm more picky with the people I chose to communicate with over the Internet. And I don't give them the time I used to give my Internet-relationships. And I don't feel (too) guilty for chosing to let emails wait for replies or comments to go unanswered. 'Cause I'm not willing to get too wrapped up in the Internet world again. Therefor, I'm doing things more on my own terms.

.....

I've been wandering. I started this post talking about my job and the amount of time I spend in front of the computer during the day. I was supposed to go from there to the fact that I'm not glued to the computer in the evenings and on weekends. And the point of the post would be to tell you all that I've spent approximately 5 hours playing with our new MacBook Pro today. What a Saturday!

2 comments:

Diet Coke Mom said...

New Macs don't count as "wasted" internet time!

Geek Knitter said...

Hey, just learning your way around a new operating system... very important!