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I'm having mixed feelings about the internet these days.

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Professor Snuggles:
I dunno, I just feel sort of pathetic, you know? Like, is this really how I want to spend my time? It feels like a pretty terrible social crutch, the fact that I use the internet as a place to find friends instead of going out into the real world to meet people? I do feel more comfortable with people on here to some degree, but at the same time, common interests are not necessarily everything? Just because you guys will laugh when I talk about some comic book that everyone on here has read and two people I know IRL have ever heard of doesn't mean this is a good thing?

I worry that I am missing out on real life by spending so much time online, but I also have a lot of trouble not being on the internet. I mean, the obvious answer is obviously to quit boarding, but that's really hard! I obviously have an incredibly addictive personality, but that's sort of something I can't help. Every time I get bored, I come back to places like this.

I just get a little concerned sometimes about whether or not I am using my time well? Does anyone else feel like this, or am I completely alone here.

Slick:
I really liked this place and everything the internet had to offer me two, three years ago. Now I am just thinking it has plenty of the problems of real life and some of it's own problems.

I am with you on the addictive personality thing, I can just sink into this well of internet and ignore things. I think instead of being an alcoholic I am an internetaholic, in that I just go here as a default and can't think of other things while plugged into my screen.

Crutch is the metaphor I think of most often. I find myself thinking I'm pathetic and wishing I was doing more in real life. Internet and video games have been the cause of a serious decline in my life over the past half a year.

I have, for the past hour, been putting off a relatively trivial decision that I did not want to make by being on the internet and passing tiny tiny increments of time until making the decision.

I have come to realize this place and nowhere on the net will leave me fully satisfied.


That said, I do quite value some of the people I have met through the internet and the time I've spent here, I just feel like I have had enough.

De_El:
I spend a large amount of time on the internet, and occasionally feel similarly, but at the same time, some of what I do actually, y'know, facilitates social situations.  I am constantly absorbing new information through blogs, news sites, wikipedia, and so on, and any tid-bit I discover is one more thing to file away and could potentially be valuable to human interaction and conversation.  Ultimately of course, the question of whether or not you are spending your time well is up to whether or not you feel like you are. I mean, who's to say that objectively one action is more worthwhile than another without any consideration of why or whom, etc? I wouldn't say that you're at all pathetic just because you're online all the time, but if you feel that way it's probably a good indication that you don't actually want to spend all your time in this way.

Emaline:
True Story:

I was telling my roommate that I was thinking of getting rid of my phone(which is where I access the internet), or getting a cheaper plan(getting rid of the internet). His response was "you can't do that! The internet is 50% of your social life!" I laughed, and said "Actually, its probably about 90%."


This is sad.

Dimmukane:
I have a tendency to feel the same way, but typically only in the midst of writing papers that are due in the next few days. 

However, following the course of my life in the past few years, I think being on this forum (the internet is great and all, but I spend at least a quarter of my time online on this board) has actually had the opposite effect.  I now have a much more open mind, for one.  More things to talk to people about.  I have gotten better at being witty, and thinking things out before saying them, so I haven't felt like an asshole for anything I've said for 3 years. 

Before this forum I was pretty goddamned socially awkward.  I had fewer friends than I had fingers.  Every party I went to, people gave me funny looks.  At some point along the line, and perhaps the forum had nothing to do with it at all, I figured out how to not be a shut-in.  Now I have a hard time balancing school, work, and hanging out, because I have way more friends than I ever thought I'd have.  Still no girlfriend, but I ain't buggin'. Even if the internet, and likewise, this board, had nothing to do with my growing pains, it certainly helped me learn how to read people and how not to approach every subject like a herd of elephants.


I do think I probably spend too much time on the internet, partially because a lot of the things I do are with computers and I am exposed to them everyday.  But without all that exposure, I sometimes wonder if I would be as happy with my life as I am now.  There are a lot of things I would not have seen or heard or known, at least not as soon as I have, had I not been exposed to all this.  Some of them are good things not to know (well, you can probably guess the kind of things I am talking about), but there are far more good things than bad, I've found.

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