I’m not anti-net, but I’m highly skeptical that more technology is always better. I still don’t see why I would want to Twitter, for example. And while I’m not anti-tech, I don’t feel that much interest in getting more into tech – if I do that then when do I find time for hiking, bird watching, studying bees, gardening, writing, working with my chamber music group, working with my professional women’s group, cooking, listening to chamber music etc. We only have so many hours, all things in moderation. If that means that my PDA is turned off most of the time and I’m not on the computer all night after being on it all day, I feel fine about it all.

But I would not give up the net. I’d love to give up TV, I’d never give up the net (but I won’t be on Second Life with my free time either).

I see your points, Alice. I’m just very pro “meatspace” and I fear that all of this stuff that causes us to spend more time sitting alone in darkened rooms in front of a glowing screen is really, truly not all that good for us. I mean, why would I want to try Second Life? Do I have nothing to do in the real world that I’d rather do first (my problem is that I have way, way more that I want to do than I will ever have after-work time to do). Who spends time that could be spent in the world building an avatar? I just don’t understand this. And why would I want to Tweet? Less is more.

I don’t blog, not because I think it is a waste of time – I don’t(like everything else in life, some blogs are wonderful and some are wastes of time – just like books, plays, restaurants, anything else) but because I just don’t want to. The idea holds no appeal. I work very long hours, and that is not what I want to do at night – it is among the many other things I don’t want to do at night (writing for my local paper, writing confession stories to make $250/per like a friend, going to bars, going to the shopping mall more than absolutely necessary, etc.). Just doesn’t do much for me.

And at heart I probably am more than not anti-tech and suspect we’d all be much better off with more face to face interaction and less virtual reality. It is so easy to feel like virtual life is better and easier and filled with more wonderful friends and to turn one’s back on the world that we actually live in (which is filled with issues that don’t go away when ignored).

@Alice … No …

@ Alice: When someone asks me how I find the time, I usually tell them everyone has 24 hours in the day so I do not ‘find’ any more time given to me than they do. However it is what we do with it that counts.

With a couple of friends, I asked them to write down how they spend their 24 hours. It was an eye-opener for them. A bit like writing a food diary and discovering all those liquid calories which are dead easy to miss.

They found that they spend a lot of time waiting around at work and at home, and being idle in that time. I, on the other hand, multi-task my way through train travel, cooking, ‘watching’ TV and working in general, packing much more in a day including blogging, reading blogs, my charity trustee duties and prolific communication with my friends and extended family now with over 150 people.

Without technology, I would have _had_ to find ‘new’ friends each time I moved and I have moved nearly 2 dozen times so far in life. With technology, I am in touch with old friends and my blogging has introduced me to some truly cool people, present company included.

Time is an ethereal concept for many except for the then-28 years old Roger Waters:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation in the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I’d something more to say…

I love the Floyd. You know you are in a bad job situation (not the one I’m in now though I am rather exhausted this week) when you find yourself driving to work each day listening to a lot of Floyd and really, really “getting it.” Yes, I am a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl…etc.

Oh heck, I think that I’m right and superior all the time – sometimes you have to. For example, if you work with strong personalities and/or bullies, or are the only woman under 45, you darn well better be very ready to verge on “arrogant” at times or else you get steamrolled flat and left in the dust. Not that this is fun but one copes.

@ Alice: I agree about a longer time line for the “how I spend my time” diary. Food diary usually is good over a one, stable week.

It amazed me when I did my own diary experiment. I have done several such experiments. May be I should write about them in a post or two.