In the five days that I recorded my media use, I noticed that I spent more time on the internet as thought before. Especially on the weekends, the average time spent behind my laptop was around eight hours. During the week, it was a bit less, around five hours.
Why so much? Because it’s easy to get lost on the internet. I often start with a news website and end up clicking further because I want to know more about a certain subject. Since I moved to Finland, I gave up my subscription to a dutch newspaper and nowadays, I check their website almost every day (www.nrc.nl). I don’t consider this a waste of time because it helps me to stay in contact with the latest developments in the world.
Searching for news isn’t the only thing I do on the internet. Skype helps me to stay in contact with my family and girlfriend. During my personal media diary period, I used skype every day. On some days over two hours and other days around thirty minutes. Before I came here, I never used skype and I just bought the laptop with webcam before arrival in Finland. When I go back, I will basically stop using skype for some time because I am close to my family again.
Other things I did on my laptop quite often (a bit too much, if you ask me) were checking email, facebook and some internet-for a, especially the one from my student cycling association in Maastricht (www.dm-maastricht.nl). I also watched television on it. On www.uitzendinggemist.nl, it is possible to watch public television programmes on the internet. I used this function for about an hour per day.
I brought my laptop to the library once during those five days but I used the computers that are already in the library more often. I used them to check optima, email and other study-related stuff. The time spent on those computers was much shorter than on my own laptop, mostly around 15 minutes. When I used the computers in the library, I both used those that are in the cafeteria and those that are in the computer room. The time I spent on the computers in the café was definitely shorter.
Other places I used the internet were at some friends places. I watched youtube video’s with my roommate for about an hour. We used his laptop for this because he has a good place to sit down for those ‘silly’ things.
I would have used my laptop even more often when I played some games but I decided to stop this a few years ago after playing Need for speed-underground for hours. I thought stopping with games would deliver me a lot more free-time which I could spent sporting etcetera but it worked out that I just use the internet more often. During the five days I only made time to read a ‘real’ book once for a few hours.
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I can say and also agree with Jos that since I came to Finland my computer and especially internet usage has dramatically increased. Before that I spend more time reading paper newspapers, magazines and books instead of the online version and also did more research at the library (the old fashioned way) than on the internet. I guess the increased internet usage comes with the fact that the whole organization of the studies as well as communication among people shifted to email and messenger (especially FB). It’s been a while since I got asked for my phone number the last time when meeting new people. The most common question is “Do you have FaceBook?” and not “Can I have your number?”. Anyone having the same experience?
ReplyDeleteI agree that asking the phone number has changed into the asking if you have a FB account (at least that's my experience too). In a way it's sad, because calling to someone and asking how's the person is doing is by my opinion a more "personal" and "committing" act than casually commenting his/her FB status. It brings the arguments into the mind that claim that all this communication technology may actually just alienate us from each other after all :)
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