theboondork's RV blog

is a computer addictive?

7/15/2018

It's been a quiet, cloudy, and somewhat cool, Sunday. There's nothing much going on so I've been mostly sitting around all day playing on the computer. Which reminds me, I wonder what I did with my life when I didn't have a computer to play on? It was so long ago that I can't remember.

One things for sure I must've been more productive. If I spent as much time accomplishing things back in pre-PC days as I do now playing on a computer, I must've gotten a lot done.

But I've got a feeling that if someone took away my computer, I still wouldn't get anything done. I believe I have to look in the rearview mirror to see myself accomplishing anything more than the most basic and mundane task, because I have to be "in the mood" And even then it takes me forever.

I don't think this is a physical problem because I feel just fine. And I don't think it's a mental problem because I still seem to have what few mental faculties that I started with. It seems to be an attitude problem, or maybe a lack of ambition.

Now I've never been exactly overflowing with ambition, but it appears to me the computer has had something to do with making me even more lazy and unambitious than I was before. I can start looking at things on YouTube while eating a sandwich for lunch and the next thing I know it's dinner time and I've done nothing all day except eat, and look at the computer. This can't be good.

I lived the majority of my life without a computer and I was perfectly happy. Now I can't live without the thing and I'm a lazy bum. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this? I think I'll look it up on the computer.

theboondork

6 Comments

Barney Ward

7/15/2018 03:46:21 pm

I'm pretty sure you are the only person on the earth like that about computers judging from all the crowds out and about these days.

Tom

7/15/2018 04:08:37 pm

I had a feeling that was the case when I tried to join a computers anonymous group to take their 25 step program and I was the only one that showed up for the meeting. But that's okay I've joined an Internet group that meets 47 times a day at IhatemycomputerbutIcan'tturnitoff.com and now instead of spending 12 hours a day on YouTube, I'm spending 16 hours a day talking to people who can't get off the computer.

Tom

Linda Sand

7/15/2018 04:14:49 pm

If I look back into the 70s I used to read and do crafts and volunteer things. Now my volunteer stuff is answering people's questions via the computer and my reading is on my iPad. Is that why my eyes hurt?

7/15/2018 06:37:50 pm

Probably not, actually I think that reading on the computer is a good thing. I can adjust the brightness, and the size of the font, so reading on the computer is now easier for me than reading a book.

But as for doing things I think that computers are even worse than televisions for wasting your life away. With a television if there's nothing interesting on I'll turn it off. But with the computer there's always something interesting on. Politics, hobbies, entertaining videos, full-length movies, music, there's enough stuff there that you never have to turn it off, it just keeps you staring at the screen for hours on end seemingly without any measurable benefit other than the entertainment value.

I think it's worse for me because I'm lazy to start with and if I have a choice between getting up on the roof of the Arctic Fox and cleaning my solar panels, or sitting in my easy chair watching the latest Cat Fails videos, I'll take the easy chair every time.

Tom

Tim

7/16/2018 08:32:42 am

I spend a lot of time on the computer as well, but lately I'm trying to be more of a "creator" and "learner" than a "consumer". The only time I feel bad about being on the computer is when I've lost several hours watching something mindless on YouTube, like funny dog videos (they are hilarious though) or "The 10 Best Opening Lines in a Movie". I don't feel bad about watching RV channels because I usually have Google Earth open and mark places that I'm watching for visiting in the future.

It is a problem - I guess the only good thing now is that I seldom watch TV - so fewer commercials take up my time.

7/16/2018 12:30:03 pm

Yeah I've got the same problem. I used to spend a lot of time reading RV blogs, and bookmarking RV information, especially boondocking information and locations, but for some reason YouTube is where I ended up spending most of my time.

I'm not sure why that is, maybe it's because YouTube is like bubblegum for the mind and requires no thought, no interaction and isn't challenging or thought-provoking in any way. I know it's not because I'm at a point where I know everything there is to know about RVing, because I can still go to RV sites and read about ideas and solutions to problems that never occurred to me.

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm often sedentary during the summer and I'm not really into the "RV lifestyle" like I am when I'm traveling. When I'm sitting in my daughter's driveway in Denver my life is more like a normal person's life, I usually eat in the house at a dining room table, I watch their large screen television, and I play with the grandkids. That's what normal people do, and the only difference in my life is I sleep in the Arctic Fox.

So I think I get more into the computer stuff because my life here is very easy and doesn't require me to do much thinking so it's easy to get trapped in the mindnumbing lifestyle that YouTube offers.

Tom

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