Becoming Mindful: Monitoring My Use of the Internet

Every morning for the past week I have tracked the various activities I performed using the internet from the day before. To start, I decided to gather my thoughts in the morning rather than at night or mid-day for two reasons. The first being that my days have been jammed packed lately. I have either been at work or at school, and stepping away from my flurry of thoughts and commitments, even if only for a second, has seemed impossible. The second reason for choosing to “clock” my internet usage in the morning is that I am a night owl by nature. I tend stay up quite late. I usually get very wrapped up in my activities during the wee hours of the morning, and quickly fall asleep at their conclusion. Thus, I have circled back to my point that I have done the majority of my “logging” of internet usages in the mornings. I basically just jotted down a few thoughts on some spare paper I kept on my desk, and am now compiling my findings in this blog post.

When I start my days, I almost always head straight to work. As surprising as this might sound, I barely use the internet in its traditional sense when I am there. While I constantly have Microsoft Outlook open for email, I rarely touch an internet browser unless I have to update SOX testing information (I am an Accounting major). These are BY FAR the most productive hours of my day. I have noticed that when I legitimately have responsibilities and duties to perform, my use of the internet drops drastically. This has led me to believe that a good amount the time I spend on the internet, I’m really doing nothing. The main sites I visit are Facebook and Reddit, and I rarely post or comment. I just like to look and waste time. GREAT.

After a few hours of work, I head off to class. On the days I have analyzed, I have noticed that I space out quite often when I have my computer open in class. As I mentioned above, I will usually have Facebook open, but I am not really proactively using the site. I’m really just sitting there letting my mind wander. This is typically followed by a jolt back to reality, a quick listen to the professor to decide if the material is important, and then back to Facebook or ESPN.com. This is in stark contrast to the way I operate when I am at work. This has been my biggest discovery. As the title of this assignment hints at, I have found that I am fairly habitual in my actions. My focus at work is high, and I am easily distracted the second I get to school.

Finally, I tried very hard to measure my thoughts and actions during the third distinct time frame where I am locked to my computer. This would of course be late at night, when the internet seemingly consumes me. I have found that I watch YouTube videos constantly at night. I have discovered that I type “YouTube” into my browser without an intended video or genre of clips to view. I simply start with one of the suggested videos and subsequently click on the thumbnail next to the video player that looks the coolest. THIS PROCESS CAN LAST HOURS! In the assignment, I noticed we were asked: “Does e-mail, text, Facebook or Digg provoke pleasure, anxiety, sadness, even hatred.” I can honestly say that when I finally realized how much time I have wasted on YouTube, I got mad at myself. The other things listed, did not upset me so much. For some reason, that I haven’t quite drilled down to yet, nothing gets to me like the amount of time I waste watching videos. I’ve realized that it brings me limited pleasure and is clearly a waste of time.

Finally, I tried to keep track of how many different programs or websites I had open at any given time. I lost track all the time, but I think I came up with an honest estimate when I did manage to remember precisely what I was doing on the internet. I typically have around 4-5 tabs open on my browser and 3-4 programs running simultaneously. While these are up and running, a lot of the programs have simply been left on from previous sessions when I have used my computer. As I write this, I have a word document open that I last modified last Friday afternoon. I am definitely against the grain in how little I multi-task when compared to others. I may just be an outlier in that respect.

PS. I watched 4 YouTube videos while I wrote this. They were all about the Sochi Olympics.