Thus stuff has got to stop! I’ve developed what really can, without exaggeration, be called a computer addiction. I can park myself in front of this thing at 5:30 in the morning and not get up until two or three in the afternoon. Or later.
And that’s when there’s no work in house!
This morning when 10 a.m. rolled around I realized I had to be out of the house in an hour and a half and I hadn’t paid the bills or showered or painted the face or put up the hair or cleaned the pool or walked the dogs or…much of anything other than to play computer games.
Typically I check the email while the dogs are doing their early- morning thing in the backyard. Then I check the news of the day…which is a lot like staring deep into a cobra’s eyes.
This wastes incalculable amounts of time. Usually I’ll find some news item I want to post on Facebook.
If Google News is a cobra, Facebook is the King Cobra of the Internet. What a time suck! It truly is hypnotic. I can piddle around on that thing for what feels like 20 minutes, then look up and realize two hours have gone by unnoticed.
By then it’s too hot to walk the dogs or exercise or even clean the pool. And usually by then I have appointments outside the house, so there really isn’t time to do those things. By the time I get home, I’m tired…and so they just don’t get done.
Gotta stop. But how?
Came up with a plan: make a list of things to do (such as “get a life”…) before the computer can be turned on at all. After this, when the dogs roust me out in the morning, I start doing things. I do not park myself in front of a computer and lapse into a trance.
- Walk dogs
- Feed dogs
- Swim
- Clean pool
- Tend garden plants
- Feed dogs
- Wash
- Paint Face
- Eat breakfast
- Pick up house
- Pay bills
- Write noveloid
- Shop for groceries, household items
- Do yoga, exercises
- Get dinner
- Go to bed
All of these get priority before the computer hallucination.
When there’s paying work to do, of course, then the routine looks more like this
- Walk dogs
- Feed dogs
- Clean pool
- Eat breakfast
- Work
- Work
- Work
- Work
- Bolt down snack
- Go to bed
This scheme is going to make me even more of a recluse than I already am, no doubt. Most of my social interaction now takes place by email and over Facebook.
I have no idea which is unhealthier: no social interaction, or ersatz computerized social interaction. Dollars to donuts they’re about the same.
Speaking of the which, gotta go meet some friends for lunch and a concert. Bye!
Image: DepositPhotos, © galdzer5
I agree the computer is “a curse and a blessing”…A good way to keep in touch and learn new things….But as you point out what seems like 20 minutes online turns out to be actually 2 hours. To me anyway, it seems we use the internet like “the magic eight ball” of youth…..We ask questions….some important …some not so much… and get not just one answer but many….a time suck in deed…
Oh, don’t get me started on what a time suck the internet can be! But then again, without computers and the internet, no PF bloggers! Let’s say it’s a mixed blessing. ;o)
LOL!