Bes Z’s 5 signs you spend too much time online in 2007
I know someone who cried once for not being able to check her e-mails for about 20 hours on a single day while on a trip. When I asked her if she was expecting some important e-mail, she simply told me she had a habit of checking all her e-mail accounts, even the ones that only get junk e-mail.
To understand the idea of wanting to go online a little bit better, this article will start with the very basics by telling you about the signs related to the feelings of wanting to go online a lot. This article assumes one thing: that when a person goes online in such cases, they are not expecting something important. They are simply going online because they want to.
Following are 5 random signs you spend too much time online in the year 2007. Some or all of these signs may have been taken from my personal life.
Bes’s 5 signs that you go online too much
- You use the online language in the offline world.
On paper, you preferring writing “U” instead of “You.” You say “LOL” in the offline world when you want to laugh. The post office cashier says “Have a nice day” and you say 4 letters “TTYL“, sending the cashier into a world of confusion.
- You always want to know if your offline contacts have blogs or MySpace or Facebook accounts.
You make a frustrated face if people do not have any online presence and instead have cell phone numbers to share with you. When you get a speeding ticket, you start wondering if you can pay it online and if the cops have blogs while the cop is writing you a ticket. You wonder if that cop has a MySpace account that you can block.
- You always think of checking e-mails before you think of getting out of bed in the morning.
You think of brushing and washing face at least an hour after you wake up, because that is the amount of time you usually spend skimming through many of the e-mails you get. While brushing, you think of how to respond to some e-mails, and how to check more e-mails. Your entire day may revolve around 24 e-mail accounts, and not 24 hourly blocks.
- You revolve offline activites around online activities.
You plan going to the movies depending on how long it will take you to watch random videos on YouTube. You plan eating times depending on when no one is online on instant messengers from MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL, Skype or MySpace; you pause your eating and going out if even a single contact is online to talk to you. You may not talk to them, but you will also not leave them alone in the online world. Food can wait.
- You cannot remember the last time you stayed offline for more than three hours, except for when you slept for 3 hours and 10 minutes.
From the moment you wake up, you prefer looking at a monitor or any screen that allows you to access the online world. Even while getting a ride, or getting on the subway, you keep focusing on your laptop or your cell phone to keep in touch with the online world of games and messaging. One of the reasons you hate driving is because you cannot easily access your e-mail through your cell phone while driving; you can, but you do not want to die either. You do not fear death because it is death; you fear it because you do not know if you will be able to check e-mails after you die.
This list told you about 5 random signs that show you spend too much time online. From sticking to online language to wanting all offline people to have an online social networking account, to checking e-mails all the time to revolving your life around the internet, and not remembering the last time you stayed offline for a while, you can figure out whether or not you yourself spend too much time online.
Can you come up with some other points? I am going to end this article now, as I have to do some things online, then eat, and then head out to see either Sunshine or The Simpsons.
Thank you for reading. 
[Update: 7 minutes after this article was published: Sunshine started 12 minutes ago. I must have forgotten the timing, or they changed it. Oh well: The Simpsons, or no movie tonight. ]
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( July 27th, 2007 at 2:28 am )
6. When your dreams mostly revolve around your internet browsing.
About posting frequency, if you feel that the quality of your posts is suffering because of posting so much then post less. I am much happier to be subscribed to a blog that posts once a week than one that posts 3 posts a day, as there is only so much time in the day and quality generally suffers with higher frequency.
( July 27th, 2007 at 10:14 pm )
Matias, thanks for the comment.
That is a very nice point. The posting frequency also tells us about some people and how much time they spend online on their blogs. I personally have a lot of topics already in mind to write, so the new schedule, different than writing everyday, helps me to write when I want to. It can still be more flexible, though I think I am headed in the right direction.
In your view, do you think anyone who posts multiple times on a blog each day tends to have writing of lesser quality?
( July 28th, 2007 at 9:42 am )
All other things being equal, someone who posts more frequently is going to have poorer posts. Some blogs get around this by having guest posters, or having multiple writers, but then you start to get the problem that the quality might deteriorate because of this.
Also, depending on the subject of a fast moving blog, it can quickly be that the postings start to cover the same ground.
( July 30th, 2007 at 6:31 pm )
Did I tell you that the night before my test for my CCNA 1 certification that I dreamed about dancing MAC addresses? I’ve also had dreams in CSS, ha!
AND… can you believe it - the other day I was going to the post office and I seriously had to stop myself from saying “LOL.”
( July 31st, 2007 at 12:25 pm )
Love this. I am online about 15 hours a day and sometimes more between work and home. How about this one:
if you are out talking to people and you don’t know something and think ” I will just google it” until you realize you are not in front of a computer.
( July 31st, 2007 at 4:44 pm )
Oh, here’s another one — you know it’s too much if you are out on the street and someone you don’t know approaches you, addresses you by name, introduces himself and says, “I’ve seen your websites.” hehehehehehehe, yes, this happened to me a couple of months ago
( August 6th, 2007 at 6:06 am )
I think I am officially addicted. Is there a support group I can join?
( August 7th, 2007 at 1:22 am )
Sorry for the delay in responses everyone.
Matias, thanks for the explanation.
I see your point about having more than one author and losing control of quality. Do you think that having multiple authors results in poorer quality of posts because of the different viewpoints that different posts may offer, instead of a single unified perspective from a single person?
I do see many blogs which get popular and start covering the same grounds repeatedly, using different words, not because they want to, but because they run out of the energy to produce fresh content at a faster pace.
Valerie, thanks for commenting.
Heh, you never told me that. Dreams in CSS: sounds awesome, no? I wonder how people will react if I switch a laugh and saying “bye” with “lol” and “ttyl” in real life. Many people do not know what they stand for.
Also, I think it is both cool and scary that someone can come up to you and recognize you because of your website.
Did they notice you because of your flickr pictures?
Cadmium Plating, thanks for coming and commenting. Wow, 15 hours a day is a lot of time according to many standards.
Yes, heh, I can relate to “I will just google it.” Or even “Ok, I do have a paper and pen, but I don’t want to write it down. Just e-mail it to me.”
Do you stay online more for your plating work or for random non-work related things?
swollenpickles, thanks for the comment. I am sure there are support groups out there. This very comment of yours can count as being part of the support group at The Reasoner, no?
How many hours do you usually spend online?
Thanks everyone.
( August 7th, 2007 at 8:47 am )
Wait… saying “bye” is online language to you? We’ve said that here for all my life, before the internet was ever around haha.
Also, he would have found my history website for the county first, and then who knows where he went from there…
( August 7th, 2007 at 2:26 pm )
Valerie, sorry if I sounded confusing: I meant going from bye [offline] to ttyl [online].
That is very interesting, knowing how one may have found your sites online. Does that prompt you to connect your personal site and pictures more to allow more people to find you, hide them more, or no difference?
( October 22nd, 2007 at 3:18 pm )
I need to join this group too. SwollenPickles, did you start one?
( October 24th, 2007 at 8:42 pm )
Dan, thanks for the reply. Maybe we can all start one called ROAG “Recovering Online Addicts Group“, pronounced like rogue.
What do you think?
( November 15th, 2007 at 2:12 am )
Too true, too true.
( November 15th, 2007 at 8:19 am )
Reason #6: you leave comments on blogs for only PageRank bait with no real name or even a screen name, just something like CCNA, Cadmium Plating, Credit Card Services, etc.
( February 6th, 2008 at 1:38 pm )
[sorry for the delay in responding everyone, and thanks for waiting!]
CCNA, heh thanks. Would you like to add any other points? [Check out Valerie's comment below too please]
Valerie, interesting point. Do you think all of such names are used only for increasing the PR value of a site?