Internet and it's uses

[Deleted]

Just curious, what do you use the internet for?

I use it to google or look up information that I need or interests me. To email friends, to go on forumns or occasionally, I might use it to listen to some music. Sometimes it's just a way to relax or unwind and that's about it.

I am finding that I have less time to spend on it then I used to have, due to other commitments. My family and kids take up a lot of my spare time. I realize that most people who have a great amount of time to spend on it, probably don't have these things to worry about.

So what do you personally use the internet for? And how much time do you spend on it each day (approximately)?

[imec]

Rather than list everything in one post, I suspect I'll revisit this thread several times. The first thing that comes to mind is "product research". By that I mean gathering opinions/reviews of products and who's selling them at what price before I make a trip to the store to buy. Saves me a lot of time and money and gives me a better chance of getting the product best suited to my needs.

[paristraveler]

Everything.

Emailing friends, family and business associates.
Keeping up with everyone's day on Facebook.
"Googling" every little thing I wonder about.
Catching up on all the latest news.
Seeing what the stars wore to the latest self-congratulatory awards show.
Keeping up and posting on 8 or 10 forums like this.
Doing extensive research on traveling to Paris last year, which is how I discovered this forum.
A social life, since I am partially disabled.
Like I said, everything.

Oh, yeah, writing my blog on my Paris trip and I also used lulu.com to write and publish a semi-children's book a coupla years back.

[spindrift]

Emailing
Reading the news, mostly at breakfast
Checking exchange rates and prices
Cinema listings
Train times
Everything really....
Posting on not more than 3 forums
Facebook
Photobucket/photograph
Buying books/air tickets/checking-in/cheap digital accessories/DVDs/



The internet has become a vital part of my life

I spend at least a couple of hours online every day.

[existentialcrisis]

Besides for communication, using email and facebook and use the internet a lot for researching food and recipes and styles of cooking. So I spend a lot of time reading food blogs, wikipedia articles, and on various recipe references. I discovered this forum by searching for a forum with good discussions on food.

[Jazz]

I use the internet for many things and this shocks me and makes me think. For years I resisted the computer. Then, I resisted the discovery of this new thing, the forum.

The internet has made me aware that I am a very impatient and intense person. If you are someone who may be up all night (midnight to dawn), you understand how cut off you are, or, were. I love that I can leap to the internet at any moment to email someone in France, check the history of a book or film, look at intriguing photographs, or post on a forum...and infinite other possibilities. The internet has totally shifted 'time' for me. This is good and bad.

Good? a total world of possibility.
Bad? an easy and comfortable avoidance of reality.

[Deleted]

The internet serves for me as a creative outlet and has been unprecedented in it's potential to "meet" and communicate with persons I am very unlikely to have encountered in "real" life.

[Deleted]

Mar 14, 2010 1:41:26 GMT Jazz said:

Good? a total world of possibility.
Bad? an easy and comfortable avoidance of reality.

My thoughts exactly. It's always interesting when some (who has met a lot of Internet 'friends' in real life), say that most people were not like they would have envisioned them to be or how they come across on Internet forums.

Right now I'm looking up to see how to build a deck, one in the front of the house and one that surrounds a pool in the back.

I found the Internet really useful when looking for a house to purchase in the past. And now it's SO useful in looking for the right piece of land, communicating with real estate people etc.

What would we do without it?

[Deleted]

I use it for the news and for Googling anything that is leaving question marks in my mind.

I find email as annoying as the telephone.

[spaceneedle]

Mar 15, 2010 5:47:31 GMT kerouac2 said:

I find email as annoying as the telephone.

Great! Does that mean we can all text you instead?

[spaceneedle]

I just wanted to add that I love the internet, but I really, really dislike the whole social networking trend. There are a lot of reasons for that... one of those reasons was added to the list recently.

I have a friend who is married to a man who has adult children from a previous marriage. The adult children and ex wife are disgruntled and bitter even though the divorce happened almost 20 yrs. ago. The children from that marriage regularly write very nasty things about my friend/her husband on twitter, facebook, etc. The latest slam was from the 25 yo stepchild, complaining on her twitter page that her father did not give her the money she expected on her recent birthday. This person does not protect her tweets/facebook pages, and often names them by name. They have tried to get the stuff removed but are unable to. My friend's husband's entire extended family see what is written and are very disturbed by it, as are they. (Which is probably the whole idea.)

What bothers me about this whole trend is that some people who use social networking clearly have narcissistic personalities and the blogs/fb/twitter just feed into that. It also encourages entitlement in these people and allows them to carry out revenge (and libel) for personal issues completely unchecked. This is a part of the internet I could do without.

[Deleted]

When blogs first started, everybody told me "oh you're going to have a blog for sure!"

How little people know me!

[spaceneedle]

Mar 15, 2010 7:04:40 GMT kerouac2 said:

When blogs first started, everybody told me "oh you're going to have a blog for sure!"

How little people know me!

'


Blogs are great (and enjoyable) tools if used responsibly. Unfortunately the internet is a great frontier right now, so you can get away with libeling someone in ways you could not in 'real life'. I hope the legal system catches up soon, because I know more than one person who have been harmed by malicious phantom people writing bad things about them online. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get this stuff removed, even if you can afford to pay lawyers to do it.

[existentialcrisis]

I don't think the problem is the social networking.. I think the problem is the maturity of the people that use it.

[Deleted]

Mar 15, 2010 10:19:30 GMT existentialcrisis said:

I don't think the problem is the social networking.. I think the problem is the maturity of the people that use it.

In which case it is abuse, and, as with all "good' things,the "bad apples" AKA "sickos" emerge.

[Don Cuevas]

I couldn't live without Internet. (How I managed to do just that for the first 52 years of my life is a puzzle.)

Uses: email. I rarely used to handwrite letters (now called snailmail), but I email every day and all through the day. True, a lot of crap comes my way, but despite that, email is vital.
cocinamexicana.blogspot.com/2010/02/forwarders.html

Forums: I subscribe to and frequently post to TT, APIAS, Mexconnect, Chowhound, but read and seldom post on eGullet.org and mouthfulsfood.com I've met a number of interesting people through forums, both online and f2f.
That is my version of social networking and I'm not attracted to join Facebook, etc.
Twitting has no pull for me.

Photos: I subscribe to two photo sharing sites; the older, Pbase.com, much less used by me now, because Picasa Web Albums is so much easier to use. Plus, Picasa WA is very integrated with Blogger, my blog host, a division of Google. Google will rule the Internet in its time, if it hasn't achieved that role already.

Google Maps are astounding, and more useful features are constantly added. Don't forget Google Earth, but lately Maps has been oupacing Earth in new features.
The Google App on my iPod Touch recently was upgraded to where you can SPEAK something you are looking for and Google will come up with a results list.

(I hope that feuding Apple and Google will make up nice-nice.)

Music: I use iTunes, but purchase music only sporadically, although since I bought an iPod Touch, I do buy more. Occasionally buy music from Amazon and less from the eclectic Magnatune.com But Magnatune allows you to listen to streams for free, and you can download some of it for free. There is a small spoken ad at the end of each track.

Recently ran across Last.fm, a streaming music site where a $3 a month subscription gets you unlimited listening to your Favorites and the site's Suggestions for you.

Online shopping: I use Amazon.com a lot for online shopping. The prices are generally very good, the service is excellent, and delivery is usually free and swift. Their online "catalog" has great features that remember what you looked at, ordered and they suggest related products. Did you know, Amazon also sells BOOKS?

Travel: we do almost all our travel booking online, both airlines and hotels. It's pretty esy to compare prices. I now book directly from the airline's sites for best deals, seat availability, and less hassle than with consolidators.
Used HotWire just once to book a hotel. It was fine.

Software downloads: whooda thunkit, 20 years ago, that you could get computer programs over the ether?

[gertie]

I use the internet for the usual email, watching shows and funny youtube jokes. Sometimes I am bored and play flash games. I message friends and family on various chat programs like aim, yahoo, ICQ, and others using a multi client, and can even text family members' phones this way. I love it for booking travel and even helping me find good deals via the alerts so many travel booking sites let you set up. I like to take little mini trips to far-away places by discovering how to cook local favorites and making them for my family. Sometimes I read literature online, and love how older classics are available free on the internet.

I like making friends here and was surprised by what was said about meeting them real life above. I have many friends I have first gotten to know online and when I meet them, if by chance I have not seen a picture or talked to them via voice chat online, then yes, usually they do not look or sound as I imagined. But I always find the core person they are inside is the same person I have enjoyed chatting and teasing with online for many years. Perhaps these are people you have not talked to for years but rather only months or weeks. I find, just as in real life, people can mask themselves and fool you for a while. Over the long term, who they really are will eventually come out.

I like to research new subjects and curious things I come across, I feel like the learning and reading helps to keep the mind nimble. I often read a lot on blogs and forums, but I don't join many. I like to read about the experiences of people from different parts of the world and to discuss travel, mostly, as seeing the world is my one abiding lifetime interest, I suppose.

I don't shop that much on the internet. At one time it was a financial issue, as used to be I didn't have that much money and the sorts of things I was buying were usually cheaper purchased locally for the most part. Even now, I'm not really an accumulator, so it is mostly gifts for friends.

[Jazz]

Mar 15, 2010 7:04:40 GMT kerouac2 said:

When blogs first started, everybody told me "oh you're going to have a blog for sure!"

How little people know me!

hmmm.....Why would you need a blog, you have the Port. ;D You probably express more of yourself daily here, than most bloggers would in a week on their blogs.

I don't read many blogs. What would be the difference between blogging daily and writing daily and often, on a forum? Context? I suppose that a blog contains the exclusive thoughts of one person (with room for comments at the bottom), the forum can contain the same thoughts, but it is in a larger context and more obviously open to comment.

In addition to my earlier reply, I also write in Word, work with photos a great deal and would like to learn how to use the computer in an artistic sense...drawing, painting, designing rooms with special software etc. Twittering doesn't interest me at all, many of the blogs can be inane, but a moment by moment twit does not enthrall me.

[bixaorellana]

I think the difference between a good blog and this particular forum is the difference between a book and a quality magazine. The blogger has complete control over all content and its organization and presentation. AnyPort is more of a magazine, with a network of correspondents who function as reporters, editorial writers, photographers, comics, etc. as the spirit moves them, but all of whom contribute to an ever-growing body of work. And it doesn't pile up on your coffee table or shelves.

I use the internet more or less as does everyone who commented above. One of the things I find most wonderful about it is the way you can instantly share and discuss things with others. This would be everything from planning a get-together with my far-flung family to discussing a news story with someone else.

Mar 14, 2010 1:41:26 GMT Jazz said:

Good? a total world of possibility.
Bad? an easy and comfortable avoidance of reality.

This perfectly sums up the internet!

[Don Cuevas]

This IS my reality.

[Deleted]

Mar 15, 2010 6:37:07 GMT spaceneedle said:

What bothers me about this whole trend is that some people who use social networking clearly have narcissistic personalities and the blogs/fb/twitter just feed into that. It also encourages entitlement in these people and allows them to carry out revenge (and libel) for personal issues completely unchecked. This is a part of the internet I could do without.

I agree. And also because they are not saying what they have to say face to face, whatever they DO say, comes out a lot harsher then it normally would. (At least I hope it does). I'm not a fan of facebook, and have no interest in twitter etc. although I'm familiar with them all and know how to use them, they just do not interest me. I try and keep my life simple as possible. I also like the Internet, for many reasons, but using it responsibly and as kindly as possible, and in a positive way, is important to me.

[Deleted]

I guess I should add that I also use the Internet as a distraction. And it seems I use it more when I have more on my mind, rather then less...

[Deleted]

As a person of slow thought, I will always prefer postal mail, even though I suspect that it will disappear before I die. I like the anticipation, for a week or more, of a response to what I have written, and to allow myself time to reply as well.

Nothing horrifies me more than to find 10 or 15 emails or PM's waiting for me, often most or all from the same person demanding an immediate reply.

[Deleted]

They won't be from me. I only send you one at a time. ;D

[spindrift]

K - my goodness...who on earth would send you 15 emails/PMs at one time? How awful.

[Deleted]

Mar 16, 2010 18:25:39 GMT @Kerouac2 said:

As a person of slow thought, I will always prefer postal mail, even though I suspect that it will disappear before I die. I like the anticipation, for a week or more, of a response to what I have written, and to allow myself time to reply as well.

Nothing horrifies me more than to find 10 or 15 emails or PM's waiting for me, often most or all from the same person demanding an immediate reply.

I too,am still such a postal mail communicator. Something about having tangible evidence of something I or another person wrote just for me or them.
I also have a group of people I regularly send postcards to and vice versa.

The email,PM thing ,JEEZ!!