It’s been a little over a week since the great internet experiment ended. Here are some of the things that I learned.
1. The internet and I are not allowed to interact without a timer being involved.
As soon as the month was up, I went on a big internet binge lasting nearly a week. I kind of expected that to happen, but my hope was it would only last a day or two. Instead, I’m coming to the conclusion that whenever I use the internet, I need to also use a timer so that I am aware of how much time is passing and know when to get off.
2. I’ve realized how much the internet is a “keep up with daily” not “catch up when I feel like it” kind of thing.
While I was in the midst of my “15 minutes a day of recreational internet” month, I learned how quickly one can fall behind on Facebook and Twitter and such. I wanted to read or at least skim all the posts and tweets because I wanted to know what was going on, since this is how I keep in contact with some long distance friends, but with only 15 minutes a day, I often fell behind. Then it would take a couple of days or more to catch up, since I only had 15 minute chunks.
Then there is my reading list on Safari. More often than not, if I found a link to a page I was interested in reading, I would plop it in my reading list, knowing I could and would come back to it after my month was up. However, I’m pretty sure I have well over 200 pages to deal with in my reading list. Granted, not all of them are from this past month, but I have a lot to catch up on, plus dealing with whatever pops up each day. No wonder people talk about information overload.
3. I learned how to make Facebook work for me.
Meaning, I finally realized that just because I accepted a friend request from someone I barely knew in high school didn’t mean I had to have their every status update in my news feed. Recently, as I’m on Facebook, I’ve been adjusting some of the settings on a few of the people who I’m friends with. I just don’t have the time to skim over or deal with things I don’t care about. Yes, I want to stay in touch, but I really don’t need to know that so and so hit such and such a level on a game. It’s helping me streamline my news feed into getting the stories and posts I actually care and want to hear about, which means less time on Facebook, and maybe more time actually posting something so people know I’m alive and doing well.
4. Email and I do not get along and our relationship needs to change.
As I write this, I have three email accounts. Yep, that’s right. Three. One is the first email address I ever had, and I now use it when signing up for businesses or accounts or such, so it’s kind of my spam email address. One is the one I use with family and friends. The third is the one that I use for LTUE and other writing things. And none of them are kept up to date on a regular basis.
I had set aside time to deal with email once a week. I quickly learned that was unrealistic, especially for my LTUE account. Because we were nearing the actual event, the emails were flying fast and furious. I would come to find over 100 emails waiting for me. My email would become a much more useful tool for me if I would make the time to deal with it daily instead of letting it pile up. I have not yet figured out how to work that in, but obviously I need to change the way I deal with my email, because I have this problem with all three accounts.
5. Pinterest and I still have issues that need to be resolved.
Pinterest is my time waster of choice online. I can easily spend a couple of hours on there without a second thought. Which is the problem. I need to have those second thoughts because I need to use those couple of hours to do far more useful things. Breaking my bad Pinterest habit was part of why I started the whole internet experiment in the first place. I obviously still have a way to go on that.
6. Despite the fact that the internet and I still have issues, I do have the self-control to master the internet instead of letting it master me.
Yes, I went on an internet binge last week. But for the month before that, when the timer went off, I was off the internet. Even when I didn’t want to get off, I still got off. I had and do have the self-control to get off the internet and use it as a tool. I do have the means to let it be a source of relaxation, not just a huge time sucker. I just need to take the skills I learned during this past month and use them now.
So there you go. There’s a few of the lessons I learned from using the internet recreationally for only 15 minutes a day for a month. Now I just need to learn to apply those lessons, and I’ll be set!
Random Thoughts from Caitlynville 