My Time and The Internet

I just sat down about 20 minutes ago to check my e-mail. Should have been a 10 second task. Had one e-mail, an ad from Bugaboo Creek, I deleted it (not planning on going there soon enough to take advantage of the coupons) and that should have been it. But, instead of getting up and finishing getting dressed and drying my hair, I played around on the Internet for 20 minutes (ok…19 minutes and 50 seconds). I read a friend’s blog (Wendy’s Bees – http://www.wendysbees.blogspot.com/), checked my e-mail at work (which I can do over the Internet), and looked at the TV listings to see if there was anything I wanted to watch.

As I was closing out Mozilla Firefox, I started thinking about how much time I spend on my computer doing e-mail and playing with the Internet. This lead me to think about what I used to do before I had a home computer, back in 1997. My brother gave me my first computer for Christmas that year. Actually it is this same computer. Since my brother is a computer genius, he upgrades it every year and fixes anything that goes wrong. Granted this current version is much more powerful, has much more memory and is running Linux instead of Windows, but it is essentially the same computer.

Before Christmas 1997, on a Saturday morning after taking a shower, I would do what I was supposed to do and get dressed, dry my hair and go to the store. Which is what I am supposed to be doing now. I need to bake some cookies for a dinner at church tonight and I am missing some essential ingredients (eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder). But instead of doing that, I am playing with my computer. I wonder how much time I have spent doing this over the years. Not that I don’t learn things and not that I don’t think that it is a valuable use of my time. And, I must say, I am closer to my sister and younger brother than I would be if I didn’t have a computer. Because of this marvelous tool, I am able to stay in close contact with them and even talk over Skype. I was just thinking back to a time when I didn’t have a computer and what other things I did with my time. I guess that I would have probably sat in front of the TV and surfed through the channels to see if there was something I should watch instead of going to the store. Yeah….that is what I would have done.

Of course this leads me to think about my childhood and not even having a TV. But I think that might be a story for another posting in my blog. I really do need to finish dressing and get to the store. Otherwise my cookies won’t have a chance to cool before I have to leave for church. I’m posting this and then closing the window. Without looking at anything else. Really…I am!