It is now common for me to sit on the toilet with my laptop on my bare legs.
I used to have Tivo and watch about 20 hours of television, including several hours of shows like Match Game (yay, Brett), Golden Girls, Food Network and football. Now I'm down to one hour of Amazing Race, one hour of Top Chef, and the occasional Olbermann or Daily Show. Actually, I started downloading episodes of Top Chef from google last week.
I used to talk on the phone when I got lonely or bored. Now I IM. I used to read the paper: now it's dailykos or hullabaloo or atrios or msnbc.com. I used to read a book a week. Now maybe it's every other week (and that's pathetic because I work in publishing); now i read blogs. I now know the details of my friend's cousin's trip to Europe without ever speaking with her or sitting through a slide show.
I buy all my music on the computer and most of my books. If my laptop could tell me if something fits, lord knows I would never be upsold in a clothing store again. I used to spend hours hovering over dusty books in the library; now only once in a while for research. Pick up a Yellow Pages or open a map to prepare directions for a trip - LOL!
The other day I said LOL out loud and shrunk in horror.
I can't write with a pen for more than 5 minutes without cramping but I can type 90 wpm. Because I live in NYC I do take advantage of the beautiful city and hang out with my friends and go dancing and stuff, but while hanging with friends at their house last night, I avoided watching the Keanu Reeves film "Constantine" and bad TV with them by whipping out the laptop and playing Scrabble on www.isc.ro, my favorite computer activity besides dailykos. And I kind of ignored them.
And if I looked at porn on the computer, I wouldn't admit to it.
Does everyone else use their computer that much, and is it a good thing?
The internet is the great equalizer. Everyone has a voice. It's so much easier to meet people with common interests, and organize, and be entertained. On a good day, I think everyone else is like me or becoming like me, and it means the end of corporate owned media and the beginning of getting the actual truth. And the eventual end of poverty and Republicans and loneliness.
Or maybe I'm just spending too much time on the computer.