Greetings all. Here is this week's question.
Dear Ask a Punk-
I spend a lot of time on the internet. I read your blog nearly every week, but don’t get too excited because I read a ton of stuff every day. I sit down to check my email or check out some bands and it seems like two hours suddenly go by. I assume they track our computer usage at my job, but I don’t care. I’m checking email and on facebook and reading and writing stuff all the time. I know it’ll probably get me in trouble. It is probably dumb to ask this to someone online, but how do I know if I’m spending too much time online? Click-happy.
Dear Click-Happy
You’re right, that is a tricky question for me to answer. What am I supposed to say? “Spend less time online…but still read MY blog” ?? That would be pretty self-serving wouldn’t it? Let’s try to look at this though. It is an honest question.
While there is still a lot of debate in some circles about whether or not people can actually get “addicted” to the internet, I think there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the idea.
Like any form of possible addiction you first have to ask: Is this activity causing any adverse consequences in your life? In your case I don’t think it has ….yet, but obviously you see the signs of trouble ahead. You said that your web surfing will “probably” get you in trouble at work – either for the act of web surfing on company time or perhaps for your decreased productivity because of your web surfing. ARE you falling behind in the work you’re actually supposed to be doing at your job? If so, then yeah, sooner or later the sh#t is going to hit the fan.
You also said that a “quick email check” can turn into lost hours online. I think we’ve all done that from time to time, but do you feel like you’re really out of control?
Other questions to ask yourself: Do you find yourself spending time online that you used to spend doing other enjoyable things? Are you seeing less of your friends and family? Are you not answering the phone? Are you exercising less because of your internet time? In many cases I think people are on the internet for hours at a time instead of watching TV etc… while this might be giving TV Networks and their advertisers nightmares, for a lot of people it is just a new choice for how they want to spend their well-earned leisure time. No harm in that.
This isn’t true of everyone of course. I think a truly addictive personality could easily latch on to some aspect of the online experience and run it up to junkie extremes. I’m thinking about the people who maybe invest too much time and emotion into their online role-playing games or who compulsively cruise chat rooms looking for trouble… In many of those cases, the addiction is really to something else (sex or gambling etc) but the online world makes it easier to pursue THAT addiction/obsession and help it spiral out of control.
All that said, the fact that you’re even worried about it tells me that you might be in some trouble already, I’m sure there are psychologists and psychiatrists who are already specializing in this sort of thing. Before you start googling to find the one nearest you, try to put some hard numbers and facts to this. Make a list of the top ten or so sites that you frequent. What kind of sites ARE they? Then try to track, as accurately as possible, how much real TIME you spend online (and on which sites) in a given day/week/month. See if any patterns jump out at you. Are there any sites, or kinds of sites, you know you could eliminate from your surfing and not really miss them?
At work you’re really going to have to focus yourself and cut back. I’ve worked an office gig or two myself…and yeah, I wonder how on earth people used to manage to kill time and still “look busy” before the internet was invented… but if you’re spending a couple hours of company time every day aimlessly web surfing personal stuff, yeah, that has got to bite you in the ass sooner or later. I think any employer would have a right to be pissed to find out they’re paying you to spend half your day bidding on troll dolls on ebay.
So yeah, I think you might have a problem. Recognizing that fact was a good first step… Now you have to follow through and see how bad it really is, and then take the appropriate steps. Good luck.
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