I recently went a whole day without turning on my computer
Posted on
I seem to spend a significant proportion of my waking life sitting in front of a computer. Five days a week I'll spend a little over seven hours in front of the computer I use at work—a machine I've come to call Deep Thought, after the computer in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because it takes so long to do anything—only to come home at the end of the day and happily waste a few more hours sitting in front of my own PC.
Granted I'm not as bad as I used to be. Once upon a time, I was heavily involved in an online gaming community and would happily spend my evenings and weekends battling all manner of computer-controlled nasties with fellow gamers from across the globe. I did it for years and must have lost countless hours. Looking back on it now, it's not something I regret—not least because I got to know some great people in the process, several of whom I keep in touch with—but I'm painfully aware that I could probably have made better use of that time.
While, outside work, I don't spend as long at the computer as I used to, I'm still a habitual user. These days, however, rather than using it to slay monsters, I'm trying to be more productive. First and foremost, I'm a writer—at least in my spare time if not yet as a full time career. That means that when the mood strikes, I'll happily sit at my computer and tap away at the keyboard until I've run out of ideas to put into words or, more commonly, I run out of time to write! I still don't do this anywhere near as often as I should. For a while last year, I got myself into a proper writer's discipline of writing in excess of a thousand words a day; a habit I ironically broke when I started my writing course at university. Hopefully it's something I can get back into once the course finishes.
I also use my computer to do design work, usually for my new band. While I used to freelance, I have neither the time nor the inclination to do this professionally outside of work. Instead, I do it as a hobby when it suits me. At the moment it's a useful hobby to have as there are lots of things to do for the band, including logos, merchandise and promotional material, all of which would cost a fair amount if we got someone else to do it.
But this doesn't account for all of my time spent in front of a computer. I still manage to waste hours on far more trivial things, such as checking Facebook, shopping online, reading hobby forums and generally just browsing the Internet looking for something to keep me entertained from one moment to the next. The truth is, there are probably dozens of other things I could or should be doing with my time, but sitting in front of my computer seems a more natural choice.
Surviving a whole day without using a computer isn't something that happens very often. And, frankly, it felt weird!