Am I spending too much time online?
I just read Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, an article about what the internet is doing to the newspaper business. And it has me thinking about what the internet and computers mean to me.
The article compares what is happening now to what happened in the 1500's when the printing press was invented. And talks about how newspapers (this is me paraphrasing) are shortly going to be a thing of the past.
Now what has me getting all introspective is not the demise of the newspapers. That I could care less about. All my life newspapers have been a source of one thing, and that is comics. But ever since Bill Waterson stopped writing Calvin and Hobbes (I can't tell you enough how good Calvin and Hobbes was or how much it has influenced me), comics have been just been a way to pass the time while eating breakfast. No, the demise of newspapers is a logical progression; I think it is pretty obvious that the internet is a much better way of sharing and publishing information.
No, what has me getting introspective is thinking about the future; a world in which we increasingly rely on technology and electronics and the internet. From the article:
The internet turns 40 this fall. Access by the general public is less than half that age. Web use, as a normal part of life for a majority of the developed world, is less than half that age.
Let's see, I am 25 years old, and I first got an email address in the spring of 1998 when I was 14.
(As a fun little aside, my email address was manlyisme@yahoo.com, manly is me! Hah!)
We were on dial up then, and I think within a year we had DSL. That means for 11 of my 25 years or 44% of my life (I should have had a pie chart for that statistic!) I have been online.
Nowadays I spend probably 10-12 hours online a day. (A side affect [or is it effect?] of having a job as a web developer). That's a lot of time. Now why do I like the internet?
I like the internet for two reasons:
- It allows me to interact with the people in my life and specifically, share my life with them in fun ways
- It allows me to make websites
The two come together ("By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!" style) with this website and other related ones.
Let's get this straight, I like making websites, but I love making websites for me, about me, having to do with me, (or people in my life).
What is it about making websites that I like? Now this is an interesting question. Based on the amount of time I spend online, I have wondered before if making websites was my 'calling', The Alchemist style (a depolorable book, I hated it). If I decide that making websites was what I was supposed to do, then what would my life have been like if I were born 1000 years ago? Or even 50 years ago?
No, the answer is that there is no such thing as a 'calling' but just that making websites combines a lot of stuff that I like a lot into one thing.
In the past I have said I like to program because I like to solve puzzles. But I realized this wasn't quite right when Omer presented a riddle to me about people in a line with hats or something. (Sorry Omer! But I do like doing riddles with you)
After a lot of thinking about it, I think I have narrowed it down even further. Any activity I like doing a lot involves these aspects of my personality.
- I love the act of creation. Specifically building things from smaller pieces. This directly relates to many of the things I feel passionate about: playing legos (pretty obvious why), salsa dancing (you learn moves and steps and then combine them in different ways), programming TSP, playing the guitar (you learn chords and patterns and then play them together).
- I love learning skills. This explains why I like slacklining and programming and salsa dancing and the guitar and knitting. And also explains why I stopped knitting (it is pretty simple and I stopped learning) or why I was both a good and bad student (I like learning but homework is just repetition of what we already learned).
- I love ordered systems. This is where computers shine. If you have ordered data in a computer you can do wonderful amazing things with it, that just fascinate me. I love the idea of having a picture taken of me everyday. Or data on how often and for how long I pee (that link doesn't actually take you to the right page, but it takes you to a login for a website I made for keeping track of things you do on a daily basis). Or a database of how I was feeling about life everyday and the ability to find trends and correlations between sleep, exercise, food consumption, moral, stress, etc (a website I have started planning in the back of my mind). I love designing these systems. I love looking at them. I love using them. I love putting data in them.
- I like things that are challenging. If it is easy, what's the fun in that?
- This one is a bit surprising: As much as I am a complete extrovert, I like thinking through things by myself.
Why go into so much detail about this? I think understanding why I like something is important for deciding how to use it.
Anyway, this is why I love the internet.
But as we are becoming more and more dependent on the internet, and as I program more and more, I am getting weary of my attachment to it. Maybe I read too much Thoreau as a child, or too much Calvin And Hobbes.
Thoreau said, "Simplify, simplify, simplify." But how? When I am away from my computer I think about websites I am working on or could be working on. While I was hiking the PCT in 2004, when I was away from computers for 3 months, I passed much of the time planning a website. How do I simplify (and in this case I am thinking of simplification as 'elimination of dependencies') when increasingly more and more of my life is online?
The problem with the internet is infrastructure. In order for the internet to exist a lot of things have to be in place. You connect to the internet over wires. These wires connect to routers and then more routers and then servers. And these servers connect to other servers in a big 'network' (duh). To quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The internet is magic. The amount of stuff that has to happen for me to have a website is mind boggling. For me anyway. The more I learn, the more I am amazed by technology. It seems to me that the internet is the opposite of simplicity.
I am having trouble verbalizing this thought. I think what I am worried about is missing out on other important parts of life by being so invested in what happens online.
Now let me repeat. Once again, I love the internet. I am not in anyway proposing stopping or some other alternative. I am not going to stop posting to TSP, or reading emails, or communicating with my friends from other cities, states and countries. It is just that the inner hippy in me is wondering if maybe I am beginning to use it a little too much. I can't quite put my finger on the why, but this fear is starting to creep into my consciousness more and more.
The converse is, if making websites (and thus being online) makes me so happy, why stop?
I tentatively think that another one of my goals for this year might be to spend less time at my computer.
21 March 2009 07:19pm UTC • 448 views • 7 comments
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7 comments
The Anonymous Poppy
24 March 2009 03:39am UTC
No, the demise of newspapers is a logical progression; I think it is pretty obvious that the internet is a much better way of sharing and publishing information.
I think the biggest real concern about the demise of the newspaper isn't actually about a revolution in information distribution. That's interesting, and comparing the end of the newspaper to the invention of the printing press is neat, as the article that you linked does.
But the real concern is changes in the world of journalism. Who employs journalists and reporters, how they cover stories, whether people can continue to make a living telling folks about the news at all. Right now, these are really unclear. Newspapers tank, journalists lose their jobs... and news goes unreported? Maybe. What's going to happen to the fourth estate without newspapers setting the standard for reporting?
nicolettemayer
11 June 2009 03:42pm UTC
These days, there is little that can’t be done simply by turning on your computer and clicking on the internet button. Just like years ago when everyone in the country slowly added tv sets to their homes, today home by home is joining the internet age. Those that have been online for years now have learned that endless sources of information and entertainment can be gathered simply by checking out the internet. But with all that power right at our fingertips, the internet has become a sad addiction to many. Many families today are being affected by internet addiction. I suspect my child is at a risk. He spent too much time online (6-7 hours online), that’s why I use Internet filtering software Ez Internet Timer. It allows me to disable the internet connection after a specified amount of time. I set 1 hour of total screen time limit for my son per day.
Dread Pirate Benjamin
11 June 2009 06:19pm UTC
Wow! That was a dedicated spammer! She had to create an account!
Seamonster Mom
11 June 2009 08:05pm UTC
What is a "spammer"? I know what spam is, but she did not just randomly send that to you, she specifically responded to your post. Is that a spammer?
Dread Pirate Benjamin
11 June 2009 08:15pm UTC
In my logs I have it that someone came to my website via a google search for "spending too much time online. So my guess is that she is just going through google results for that search and commenting on all the blogs she can with the same block of text. You'll notice that she didn't actually respond to anything specific about my post.
Dread Pirate Benjamin
11 June 2009 08:16pm UTC
Boy too bad I didn't close my quotes in there!
Peon Peetie
17 June 2009 12:31pm UTC
i think this about sums it up for me...