Online Time

I had the rather startling realization that I may be spending a great deal too much time online. Startling only because, I am sure, I have been in denial.

I spend nearly all of my day in the office online or on a computer. Even while running experiments, I need a laptop to run the software I wrote. Only during lunch hour, honestly, am I not at my computer.

Then I have an hour or two after work I'm not online - I go the gym, bible study one evening, I volunteer to help prepare food Wednesday nights at the dorm.

Then when I get back to my room, I'm back checking email. Or sometimes writing a blog post. :)

Ack! When is it too much?



Now to be fair to myself on the weekends I get out and do things, but that's only two days out of the week. I have a friend who does not have TV or internet at home, and he says he couldn't be happier. Maybe I should take a page from him, and learn to read a book instead. I might surprise myself and be much more productive. In fact I'm positive I'd be more productive.

So why today in particular did this strike me?

Well I was perusing my Google RSS feed when an intriguing Slashdot post came up. Then I was perusing recent /. posts, and I found this one.

And in the comments was a thread with a link to a meetup.com group just for people who like nerdy things. It's an active group, with a bunch of people, and regularly scheduled events.

And I thought hmm, that might be kind of fun to go to one of the events. And then I thought, oh gees, how pathetic is that? I have friends I actually KNOW that I can do things with, instead of meeting strange people through an online network...

And then I saw that in August there is a group of people meeting to see Brian Herbert, the author of Winds of Dune (release date August 4th, oh yeah), while he is in town during his tour of the east coast this summer.

Ooh, so tempting.

In the end I don't think I'm going to join any meetup.com groups. But I think I will go on my own to the book signing. :) And in the meantime I'm going to try to spend more of my life off the computer. It'll be good.