If technology is meant to save us time, then why are we busier than ever before, asks Rosemarie Dorekens.
Motivational speaker Harvey MacKay once said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”
27 per cent of Maltese spend roughly more than 20 hours per week online- Rosemarie Dorekens
Indeed, life’s greatest luxury is time itself. Which is why centuries ago, humankind started inventing machinery to help reduce hardship and time spent toiling for a living.
But then, a revolutionary invention stirred the face of the Earth, shaking all the foundations of human existence. Nearly half a century ago, the internet started evolving from a technology used solely by the US military to one used by all.
But as the internet grew and spread in more households and offices, many people realised the increasing need to be able to file and organise files and information.
And that is what the internet is all about – information. A digital native – an individual born during or after the introduction of digital technology – has a completely different view of how to retrieve information, when the need arises, than a digital immigrant, that is, a person born before the existence of digital technology and who adopted it at a later stage in life.
So my son would definitely think that I am wasting my time going to the main library in Floriana to research a particular topic as he could easily do that while browsing on his computer from the luxury of his bedroom. How-ever, I personally have doubts how much of that time browsing he spends actually researching.
I don’t know about you, but in the beginning, the internet for me was just a part-time activity in the evening. I used a search engine for researching, instant messages via Yahoo Messenger or MSN to connect with friends all over the world, or just watched a video or listened to my favourite music tracks on Youtube for entertainment.
So basically, my internet usage was very low, as I was doing my own thing in my offline life. Therefore, there was basically not much room left for spending a disproportionate amount of time online.
The major change in my internet usage happened in 2009 when I newly discovered the internet as an amazing source for all kinds of information that helped me to stay up to date, in many areas. As a result, the time I spend browsing has fairly increased over the past two years.
The blame of this increased activity? Facebook and Twitter. The moment I logged on for the first time and created an account on these social media, I was hooked and time took another dimension.
Then I acquired a smart phone, so I was always logged in while on the go. But these activities do not seem to have saved me ample time. On the contrary, they are the culprit of what I classify as wasting time, without actually realising.
Besides all the positive side-effects of the internet, such as being bombarded with information I can hardly retain in my short-term memory let alone store it in my long-term one, I spend a lot of time online in an ineffective and unproductive way on activities that simply waste my time.
I also know that the moment I switch on my computer, I always follow the exact same pattern. First I start by checking my e-mails, reading and deleting spam; then I open my other accounts and leave them on stand-by, just in case someone pops in to say hello. Before I know it, an hour flies by in an instant.
Even my research patterns are not as direct and targeted as they used to be. Rather than just searching for the information I want, I also metaphorically park on the side of the internet road to read blogs I find interesting, some title stories on online newspaper sites, have a look what the people I am following on Twitter have to say, and log on to Facebook to get in touch with friends to see what they are up to.
I also blame the marvellous but equally time-wasting Google Chrome. The multiple tabs allow me to open as many sites as I want, keep track and save until later, to go on deviating my concentration; eventually, I end up distracting myself from my original search. And two hours would have gone by.
Nevertheless, I’m definitely not the only one who is aware of this drastic increase of personal internet usage. As the internet becomes more and more an omnipresent part of everyone’s life, internet usage will continue increasing.
According to latest figures published by Malta Communication Authority, 27 per cent of Maltese spend roughly more than 20 hours per week online. Men tend to spend more time on the internet than women. This could be because internet is used at work as well.
Focusing online is easier said than done. As the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan – regarded as the father and leading prophet of the electronic age – had predicted, the media has become an extension of ourselves. The question remains: What does technology extend?
In this case the internet is extending our memory, storing huge amounts of information, saving us the time to store it ourselves. Can it be that this technology overload is over-extending ourselves?
An over-extended internet culture longs for a work-life balance. With the internet we can juggle a million things from a single place. However, this internet culture might amputate the real value of time spent with our significant others.