Do you struggle with how much time you spend online?

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I don’t struggle at all. I log on in the morning and am on all day. No fight there! 😃

I work from my computer at home. So I see peeking into a site as leaning around the cubby partition to talk to a “coworker.” If I were in an office, this would be the water cooler.

One of my sisters and I frequent a small select site of like-minded posters. Her husband refers to it as the picket fence, and we’re all leaning over it clucking like chickens. Yep. 👍

In a different day and time, we would have been down pounding our clothes on a rock by the river and talking. My neighbors are all gone during the day. I live far from family. But I feel more connected to people than I did before the internet. When I lived overseas I wrote letters that took a week to travel. Phone calls were $4 a minute. I’m a lot happier when I’m less isolated.

I think being online becomes an addiction when your kids start telling you (whining voice) “You’re always online! Let’s DOOOO something.” Or when your spouse walks in and sees you on the computer and just lets out a sigh and keeps going.

A log-in sheet by the computer would be interesting. It might be startling for people to realize how much of their time is taken up with strangers. If you’re spending an excessive time talking to strangers, your family relationships have probably started to suffer by now and you probably already have a suspicion that’s true.
 
I believe that our time is a gift and that we will be held accountable for how we used it. If I’m granted 80 years, will I have used it well, or will I only accomplish 40 yrs of work?

We need down time and should have no qualms about times of rest and recreation. It’s all a matter of balance, IMHO.
—KCT
 
Cat said:
I’ve already voted, but I would like to add something to this discussion.

I’m 50 years old.

When I was a kid, the primary recreation of most families was TALKING.

I can remember Sundays spent driving to various friends’ and relatives’ houses for “visits.” We would arrive, and there would be other friends or relatives, often sitting around in those metal lawnchairs, and the grown ups would spend the entire afternoon TALKING (while we kids ran and played).

I can still hear them saying it: “Sit a spell and talk.”

Holidays were TALKING days. The entire family would gather in the living room after the dinner and talk talk talk talk TALK TALK TALK!

When he still lived in the city, my dad used to go down to the donut shop almost every morning and sit and TALK with a bunch of other men who did the same thing.

My mom used to sit around with the neighbors and spend a whole morning talking while my brother and I played in the yard with all the other kids. My mom also used to call her friends on the phone, or they would call her, and they would talk for an hour at a time.

My mom and dad would take road trips and spend the whole drive, hours and hours, talking. If there were other grownups in the car, they would talk and talk.

All this talking covered a huge gamut of subjects. Often religion was a topic in our family. Politics, economics, the Viet Nam war, current events in our city, some sports (our family was into figure skating, believe it or not), school things, rearing of children, work, cars, building stuff, crops and livestock (many of my relatives, including my dad, farmed), movie and television stars, etc.

I can remember a family picnic where my brother and I were called upon to act out the various television commercials that we had memorized–it must have been hilarious for older relatives to see two little kids acting out the Phillips Milk of Magnesia laxative commercial. They had us do it over and over. My brother and I felt like big shots!

But then modern times came. My husband and I grew up and had kids and we filled our days and evenings and nights and early mornings with ACTIVITY and WORK and RECREATION (like skating lessons, ballet lessons, music lessons, etc). No time for idle talk with people other than our own family. Waste of time. Phone call? Just let the answering machine take it. Visits? Well, we’ll try to make it to the Family Christmas Party. Lawn parties? It’s not safe in our neighborhood to sit out on the lawn and chat. Besides, the kids have a lot of homework and we haven’t had sex in a month and we have to finish re-organizing our family photo album (which no one ever looks at except us)…

You get the idea? Nowadays, just sitting around and talking is the kind of thing that only yayhoos do. Not modern busy people.

And I think that’s sad.

But now there’s ONLINE forums. We’re all TALKING again. If you close your eyes, you can almost picture the metal lawn chairs and grandma and Aunt Myrtle and crazy Cousin Robert and that slow boy, Chris, and, oh,my, there’s the pastor dropping by for a visit, I’ll run in the house and grab some more cookies and lemonade!

It’s wonderful! I just wish my mother had lived to see it, because she loved to talk so much I think she would have been online line 22 hours a day (she couldn’t sleep much with her arthritis). I think she would have learned to type with her nose just to be able to TALK to people again, other than nurses and doctors.

In fact, talking is more fun than ever with online, because it used to be that we talked mainly with people like us–our relatives, friends, church pals, work associates, etc. Now we can talk with people of different races, religions, backgrounds, intellectual levels, nationalities, etc. It’s great!

WHAT is so bad about spending hours just talking to each other?

We USED to do it, back in the OLD days. If you weren’t talking online right now, what would you be doing? Talking to REAL people out on your lawn? Well, if that’s the case, you probably should sign off now. But for most of us, it’s been forty years since we took the time to sit out on the lawn and TALK to people. This forum (and others) are my “front lawn,” or “my living room” or “my phone calls from friends.” I just wish I had more time to “sit a spell” and talk.
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This was a very interesting post. I think it’s sad that people need to go to an anonymous internet forum to fulfill their basic social needs. How sad that Catholics need to go online to fellowship. These are pseudo-friendships, not real ones. A person on the internet isn’t going to help you out if your father is dying of cancer or your child died.

It’s all empty talk, and the fact that people need to spend 5 hours on an internet site shows a serious lack of connectedness in their real life. Just my two cents.
 
I go through periods of time where I’m either on 24/7 or not on for months. I just started getting online again and I think I really need to make sure I don’t overdo it. It is tough though. I try now to get online only in the evenings or on the weekends, I think I’m going to cut my weekend time back though - I’ve been on all weekend 😊

One thing I noticed is that I tend to get online when I don’t want to do something else. Right now I have a list of three books that I should be reading. Lumen Gentium tops the list because I have a discussion group on Tuesday about it, but I don’t want to read it. So I come online to “take a reading break” and stay online…um reading…for several hours. :rolleyes:
 
I studied Lumen Gentium in my jr. year in high school. The writing style seemed familiar to Pope JPII’s. Turns out he helped write some of the documents.

Good luck with that! 👍

I find Vatican II has been really misrepresented and misused by people who probably never read the documents.

I love Lumen Gentium, because it didn’t tell the people to storm the altar and the priests and nuns to go out in the world. It told the lay person his job was to be the light of nations.
 
jrnami,

Some people are just good at making friends. I’m not.

I do much better when I can write than when I talk.

I had major ankle surgery on March 19, and I’ve been home all that time, other than weekly Mass, a few trips to see my daughter sing at college, and dinners out with my husband. I also visit a schizophrenic woman that I’ve been friends with since college–the only friend I still have from college. And I did one book-signing, cast and all.

I’ve had a few work associates call or stop by, but for the most part, no one comes to see me, and I don’t mind.

I’ve written two novels and I’m working on a third. I’ve written two screenplays and sent them off to a dozen agents. And I go online.

I’m having a great time. I actually dread going to back to work. It’s not the work I dislike, it’s dealing with the people.

I’m perfectly happy with this kind of life. I love to talk, but I don’t really like to have friends. I love to be friendly with people, but I don’t like to follow up and be a “buddy” or a “pal.” If someone calls me and asks me to go to lunch, I would go. But no one calls, so it’s a moot point.

May I add that to my knowledge, everyone likes me. I chat with lots of people before and after Mass. I say hi to people in restaurants, and we talk. I go to Bible studies and everyone likes me. At work, I’m kind of a loner, but only know of one person who dislikes me (because I told her that if she ever bashes men again in the workplace, I will go to Human Resources and report her and she will be fired because there’s a No-Tolerance Policy on harassment in our hospital. I got tired of hearing her berate men and call them stupid and sex-maniacs.)

I have a textbook choleric temperament. (Have you read “The Word Among Us” this month?)

I suppose you’re right, that when a crisis hits, perhaps I will wish that I had friends. But I’m in a crisis now (hoping that I’ll be able to walk again), and I really, honestly don’t feel any lack in my life because I have no friends.

My whole family is kind of like this. My father (73)knows everyone in the city, literally. Everyone likes him, and he’s comfortable talking with everyone. But he doesn’t hang out with “friends.” He spend a lot of time “in solitary,” driving his tractor around the fields disking or planting, commuting to an antiques auction, fixing up one of his 17 homes.

So I think it’s a learned family trait. We’re all much happier in our own heads and with our family members. BTW, my dad and brother have been faithful in visiting me since my surgery.
 
I also prefer writing to talking. What I have noticed though, is that the more I am online the less I want to talk to people in real life and I know that isn’t good.

I spend way too much time online and have been working to cut back, although I can’t say I have had much success.
 
As a proud introvert (ha!ha! read “The Introvert Advantage” very interesting), writing has always been a preference to me. So these forums are great. I can’t stand talking on the phone. I enjoy socializing in small doses within intimate settings and with a small amount of people. My least favorite part of doing recitals are the receptions afterwards. I’m very bad at small talk, although I’ve been learning, but I don’t believe I’ll ever enjoy it. Most of my free time is spent with family, since my family on both sides are HUGE and they love to have a party for almost every little reason. I have a small amount of friends with whom I enjoy spending quality time and with whom I really express my true self and opinions. We don’t agree with everything, but we have respect for each other, which make for great debating and discussion. But I also get along with practically everyone I meet no matter what kind of life they lead. I’m fine with not being really close to everyone or feel the need to actually socialize and go out with them.

I was just starting to curb my internet forum talking when I got addicted to these forums a few months ago. Ha! I’ve begun to limit my time on the Internet again, though. I think it can become unhealthy when you begin to spend more time on the Internet rather than doing housework or study or just spending time with other people. CAF is fun and interesting for me. I like passionate discussions and debates, although I have realized that some are more sensitive or fragile than others and do take things too personally and become very defensive. Then they get way too angry and very sensitive and when I see that, I believe it’s time for the discussion to end since the other person has gone to another level that really doesn’t work in a debate. That’s a shame, because passionate discussions are the most interesting and it helps me to think even deeper about what I believe. That’s one of the problems with on-line discussions. You cannot really see a person’s facial expressions or hear the tone of their voice to really know what angle a person is coming from. The written word is wonderful, but if you express it in a way that comes across as opposite of what you intended, you can unfortunately get into some trouble. When saying something in person, you can probably get away with a certain verbal form of expression because the receiver of the communication is there examining your look, eyes, and tone of voice. But when writing, you sometimes have to change that form, especially if you notice that you have to constantly tell people to re-read your post or that you were misunderstood.

In on-line discussions, I don’t get personally offended because I don’t know most of the people on here and I’m taking into account that almost everyone else feels the same way and are on here to discuss subjects they feel passionate about. I might disagree wholeheartedly with the other person’s line of thought and might be very passionate with that disagreement, but on a personal level I definitely don’t think of that person as a horrible or stupid, etc. Those people and, I believe, most of us are also on here to achieve a higher and deeper understanding of our faith and beliefs. So, although we may disagree with each other to achieve that understanding, we’re still trying to obtain the same thing. That’s what I respect about mostly everyone on these forums. Now if there are people on here who are just angry or sad people, then that’s a different story.
 
baltobetsy said:
Let’s talk about our time on CAF. Is it a moral issue for you? I just read an interesting article about our time online, and it got me thinking.

How much time do you spend on CAF? Are you content with that, or do you think it should be more or less? Do you think are addicted? Do you consider it your personal apostolate? Do you bring it to confession? Did you give it up for Lent? And what about charity - do you find yourself thinking badly of others or arguing with them? Have you become more or less cynical and critical of others? Or do you learn a lot and find ways to be kind?

For me, it eats up four or five hours a day. I bring it up in confession every time, but, curiously, the priest keeps telling me it might be a good thing. I’m sure he means in moderation, which I have not achieved yet.

The first thing I do when I get home after an errand or work is to see what’s on CAF. That’s what makes me think I’m addicted. That and the fact that I hide it from others - I’ll close the window right away if DH comes into the room so he doesn’t know how nuts I am for it. I open up Stuff On My Cat instead.

Now, I’ve only got a little over 1300 posts, but there are people here with 10 times that. If I’m on for 5 hours a day, how long does it take to post 13,000? I guess that has more to do with the ratio of time spent reading to time spent posting. I do read more than I post.

So, what about you?

Betsy
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[Bi’m new to the forum and don’t get here as often as i’d like to actually. 🙂
as to computer time itself…oh my!! 😃
MY addiction is myspace.
yes…there ARE a number of pages over there that are NOT family oriented HOWEVER…there are MANY that ARE
i love the web in general and can spend HOURS just surfing along from one link to another.
there HAVE been a few times when i SHOULD have been doing something else…heaven knows, as a sahm i have MORE than enough to keep myself busy 🙂 …]
 
AH YES I was so addicted in the begining a year ago!!:eek: I have cut back a little–probably because of my schedule and I have had too.
My family gets mad at me and complains about me being on here too much.:eek:

My daughter even said she was going to log in and write some nasty stuff that would get me kicked off so I couldnt go on anymore.😦

I too enjoy learning about the CC. Most of you know Im not catholic but I enjoy learning and I enjoy explaining my beliefs.😃

If nothing else this forum has educated me on catholocism and I have made a very good friend in the process and have met some fantastic christians. I cant wait to meet you in heaven.👍

As for my time here—well, Im starting to get bored with the same old topics so I read more then I post and I have been reading just bits and pieces. I guess everything runs its course. CAF is probably running its course with me and someday I will be able to walk away and not rush to my computer to see what is written.🤷
 
ALLFORHIM said:
As for my time here—well, Im starting to get bored with the same old topics so I read more then I post and I have been reading just bits and pieces. I guess everything runs its course. CAF is probably running its course with me and someday I will be able to walk away and not rush to my computer to see what is written.🤷
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Almost as an answer to prayer, this is beginning to happen for me, too. As a church musician, I have, in the past been very interested in the music threads. Now, I hardly look any more. It’s the same old thing every time. Everybody’s favorite solitary sin is hashed to death - that’s boring, too. I’m tired of people going to Mass and sniffing out liturgical abuses - so that lets out a whole huge category of posts. I still have my favorite topics, which I eagerly seek out, but there aren’t as many of them.

So, now, I come here just as often, but don’t stay as long, thanks be to God!

Betsy
 
Not really, about 95% of my work is done on the computer. CAF provides a nice distraction while working on various projects and I’ve found it actually makes me more productive.
 
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