Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Internet

The complaint about anyone spending too much time on the internet focuses upon the belief that people can get lonelier and lonelier without participating in a real-life crowd.

I have a problem with that complaint. Speaking for me, I have felt lonelier among some groups of real-life people than I have ever felt surfing the net. Truth is, I don’t surf all that much. I probably should do more of it because internet offers a variety of interesting sites. In addition, if I don’t like something, I can click myself out of there. Just try clicking off a person who says everything against everything you believe in and expects you to agree with him, while attending a boring party.

Then, the same complaint should apply to the couch potatoes who watch TV all day, with no participation. Which is worse then, internet or the TV?

On the internet, participation is the key in most sites. When I am inside a site such as Writing.com, I feel I am among friends who enjoy ideas and subjects similar to mine and we participate through our common goals or preferences. Try finding that in a neighborhood. No one in my neighborhood is into writing or art, and in my family, only a few of my cousins. There have been some people, even, who have tried to stop me from “doing that boring thing with no practical end.”

I don’t know how much time I spend online, exactly, but I go in and out several times during a day because I have to attend to real life. Some of those times spent on the web are only a minute or two, and the others may be a half hour to an hour or so.

On the other hand, I can see how some people can become addicted to the net to the detriment of their social and emotional "real" life. Yet, my way of using the web fits me perfectly, since I don’t fall into its destructive pits and stay focused on the areas that sustain me intellectually and show me things I don’t know about.




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Prompt: How much time do you spend on the internet on an average day? Do you think it's too much?