Slashdot Mirror
Internet Use Cuts Socializing Time
Sammy at Palm Addict writes "A new survey published in the New York Times states that using the internet has seriously cut into our socializing time. We spend less time watching TV and more time using the internet and following up email. 'The survey found that use of the Internet has displaced television watching and a range of other activities. Internet users watch television for one hour and 42 minutes a day, compared with the national average of two hours.'"
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find the Internet very useful in planning social events, something which increases socializing time. I'm hardly less social because of it.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Isn't the Internet a tad more educational? Plus it IS socialising. I know I usually have about 10 msn windows open at once. It's replaced my phone as my main source of communication.
...using the internet has seriously cut into our socializing time. We spend less time watching TV and more time using the internet and following up email.
I was under the opinion that things like writing email or posting here on Slashdot were a bit more "socializing" than sitting in front of the TV watching a set of commercials interspersed with bits and pieces of some reality show.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
So, what the blurb is saying is that people are communicating with people instead of watching television - and that is seen as cutting socializing time?
And disregarding the slashdot blurb, if this is communicating with friends using IM or email, rather than by phone (as seems to be the case among people I know), how is that in any ways worse?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
...but that's why I use it.
Esoteric reference.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
Reduces solcializing by 23.5 minutes, watching tv by 10 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes, leaving a net gain of 18 minutes a day.
So, does this mean for every hour I play on the Internet I get 18 minutes added to my day? I'd say that's a bonus.
As for the socializing, yeah, uh-huh whatever. Didn't do it before the Internet, thats what MMORGs are for.
If you watch less TV and spend time in chat room and forums, you are actually socializing more with other people ( /. may or may not be included ).
When you watch TV, do you watch it with other people? If you do, do you talk to them while the show is on...probably not. But if you are on the internet talking to people in a forum, more than likely you are also watching your email, IM other people, or have another chat/forum open. You are actually doing something other than absorbing mindless crap from the TV.
In reality, MORE is to LESS as TV is to SOCIALIZING.
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
The majority of time that I spend on the internet is spent communicating with others in some way. I would think that sending email and participating in forum discussions qualify as socializing. Heck, even the time I spend playing WoW counts as socializing, IMO, because I am in constant contact with my guildmates.
Television is an entirely one-way connection: you watch it. Even if you happen to be sitting in a room with other people, if everyone is watching the TV, no one is actually socializing with anyone else.
And furthermore, DUR! What a brilliant study: hey, guess what I figured out, if you spend time doing something, you can't spend that same time doing something else. Somebody give me a grant!
OK, I want back and RTFA. TV viewing is not socializing, just something that loses time to online activities along with face-to-face socializing and sleep. This I can see. I do not think that the loss of television viewing is something that should be mourned though.
> They mean the psychiatric definition of "socialization"
This is the kind of bunk psychiatrists push around, without consideration for reality.
I spent 10 years being sent to a eight different psychiatrists for depression & social withdrawal, went through numerous attempts at 'socialization' before I found a good doc who diagnosed a simple vitamin B absorbtion problem, cured by injections.
Eight psychiatrists couldn't tell the difference between someone who has symptoms of a Vitamin B deficiency and someone who is genuinely depressed & withdrawn.
For comparison if you had a computer that didn't boot and it was sent to eight computer techs from a certain school who diagnosed it with various windows related problems, but it was a Mac, and not one of them picked up that it was actually a Mac, then you'd have to be concerned about the whole state of computer techs from that school and come to the conclusion that they were taught rubbish.
Similarly, Psychiatry/Psychology is bunk.
no you are not.
I sometimes do it, but my computer and TV are facing each other. In other words in order to watch tv I have to spin around in my chair and look up. in order to surf the web i must spin back.
makes it easy to ignore commercials. Also I can flip on the history channel, and when you hear something cool spin around to check it out.
Of course I am running about 2 hours of tv a day, but only Monday, Friday, Sat, and Sunday.
I don't count the half hour morning news segment. as I am surfing the web for the majority of it. Just enough to hear the weather reports, and traffic outlooks.
Note to self find easy to use audio based local weather reports for OS X. I don't normally drive enough to worry about traffic anyway.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Even counting download time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
Unless you meant to imply that we are SUPPOSED to be mindless robots who follow hours of sitting in front of the tube with gathering at malls consuming crap.
/. is "media on fire".
TV is far less of a participatory (McLuhan's cool-to-hot [print-to-television]) medium than the internet (including downloading P0rn!)
In McLuhanistic terms, web browsing on
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The internet fosters selfishness and impatience. I've noticed the change in myself and others.
The internet is a medium that makes it very easy to reach out to like-minded people - this does not encourage development of one's own opinions. For this you must spend time with people who have differing opinions, which the internet doesn't encourage. This can lead to extremism and intorlerance of others. In a similar vein, a piece on 60 Minutes within the last few months documented the segregation of Americans in some places where Republicans choose to live amongst Republicans, and Democrats amongst Democrates. This has lead to a decline in debate, and increase in intolerance and extreme attitudes and a general decline in functioning democracy.