How much do I really use the internet? When first asked this question, I snickered and wondered how I would ever quantify such an area of my life. I use the internet daily - to read the news, check email, chat, skype, play games, download music and movies, check editorials, and network socially.
I email daily, with students and teachers. I chat about three times a week with friends (I supposed synchronicity is important here), using both AIM and MSN (and now with Skype). A new chat feature I have now discovered is Gmail Talk (uniting my email and chat ability). I use this almost exclusively to chat with my brother in Malaysia and a couple of friends who don't have AIM/MSN.
I have also reverted to using Skype now to call my parents, after enduring days of a horrible connection from the phone card I bought over the internet (I'm impatient. Also, I'd rather buy something like that online instead of at Publix).
In my email, I have just started using Gmail as my MSN account is spam-clogged. This works well as I'm relying entirely on Google Pages to organize my study notes for the comprehensive exams. Coming to think of it, I've been spending more and more times on that, uploading and downloading files to share with my study group. I'm on Google Pages at least once a day.
As per frequency, I've been accused of being OCD about checking my email. Sometimes I click on my inbox every 10 seconds - just to see if someone wrote. I wonder if I'm addicted to email, or if my mother didn't love me enough, leading me to seek validation from electronic messages. Who knows, right?
I also use Google daily to search for anything and everything - directions, past friends, words I don't know the definition of, restaurant reviews, phone numbers, etc.
I would also like to mention my involvement with social networking sites such as Facebook. I recently read a study discussing the possibility of addiction to the site, and shrugged it off as a researcher looking for tenure. Then I started looking at my own use of the site and realized that I have a problem. I check Facebook religiously, almost every time I use the internet. It's to check to see if I have new messages or to browse my friends' pages to see what's new in their lives.
Taking this into account, I have as of this moment deactivated my Facebook account. I survived before it, and damn it I'll survive after it.
So that's an experiment in progress.
I apologize for posting this a little late as I was away from the internet most of the weekend (surprisingly). I will report back next week and let you guys know if I'm still Facebook-free, or if I've fallen off the wagon.
Peace, Love, Hugs.
A worldwideweb log. Technology in foreign language education.
About Me
- Vinodh Venkatesh
- MA student at UF. UNC class of 2005. Food. Sports. Technology. Mac. Spain.
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3 comments:
I'm curious on why you canceled Facebook...because I did the same not long ago and somehow I got back on it because my friends were asking me...where have you been? We don't know anything about you! And I frankly found this a little scary. Have we gone too far when we have to rely on the internet to socialize..at least with certain people? Or is it that is the kind of relationship you expect to have with just some of your friends? Is the email out of fashion.... already?
i know! that's my experiment...to see if people will call/email me now instead of 'poke'
I'm conflicted as well. On the one hand, it feels a little invasive to have an account up, especially when people are posting pictures of you that you never approved of. On the other, well, its nice way to stay connected. One of my closest friends in Montreal refuses to get an account because her work requires her to be on a computer all day and she says she just wants to relax and read a good book and eat a nice meal and perhaps watch some tv when she gets home. But she certainly doesn't feel like getting back on the computer. I suppose if you're in literature and your job is to read a good book then it's not so bad to spend time of Facebook.
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