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Wasting time vs. surfing the internet
Feb. 24th, 2011 05:55 pmIt´s nearly 6 pm and I haven´t done much today except sit in front of my laptop and surf the internet. (And eat.) I should be studying, ironing, cleaning and doing various other stuff. This is nothing new.
What´s interesting is that today I can pinpoint exactly when I started "wasting time". Today in the morning I spent a few hours reading various very interesting and thought-provoking blogs and articles about topics like feminism and rape culture, gaming fandom, and Libya. Sure, I could have studied during that time, and that would have been more "productive". But I got something out of the time investment. The same when I read through the RaceFail link round-up, read a Privilege 101 post or a linkspam about transsexuals: I invested time and got education back. And it was worthwile. (I could have chosen a better time for trying to catch up on RaceFail than the middle of the night before exam week, but I´m glad I did read it.)
Then around noon I started reading fic for half an hour or so. It was a good fic that genuinely interested me; I´d read it before, but it was a good reread. Still not a total waste of time, although first doubts start to creep in.
Next I´m organizing my link documents, catching up on the "check out later" bookmarks and WIPs. Not a waste of time, but I´m painfully aware that I´m only doing it to avoid studying.
By now I´m refreshing my flist/reading page every couple of minutes as well as various other pages in search of entertainment and to escape from studying, all the while feeling terribly guilty that I am not, in fact, studying, and also that I haven´t studied yet.
This is the moment where I should make the effort to shut down the computer, if I didn´t need the damn internet to study. Argh.
What´s interesting is that today I can pinpoint exactly when I started "wasting time". Today in the morning I spent a few hours reading various very interesting and thought-provoking blogs and articles about topics like feminism and rape culture, gaming fandom, and Libya. Sure, I could have studied during that time, and that would have been more "productive". But I got something out of the time investment. The same when I read through the RaceFail link round-up, read a Privilege 101 post or a linkspam about transsexuals: I invested time and got education back. And it was worthwile. (I could have chosen a better time for trying to catch up on RaceFail than the middle of the night before exam week, but I´m glad I did read it.)
Then around noon I started reading fic for half an hour or so. It was a good fic that genuinely interested me; I´d read it before, but it was a good reread. Still not a total waste of time, although first doubts start to creep in.
Next I´m organizing my link documents, catching up on the "check out later" bookmarks and WIPs. Not a waste of time, but I´m painfully aware that I´m only doing it to avoid studying.
By now I´m refreshing my flist/reading page every couple of minutes as well as various other pages in search of entertainment and to escape from studying, all the while feeling terribly guilty that I am not, in fact, studying, and also that I haven´t studied yet.
This is the moment where I should make the effort to shut down the computer, if I didn´t need the damn internet to study. Argh.
