S is for Screen Time

Saying "oh, I don't have cable" is nowhere near as smug as it once was.

At one point, that was a statement dripping in judgement.

"Oh, I don't have cable" really meant "I spend my time doing more important things. I don't know how anyone has time to watch television."

Now, it just means that the speaker probably watches TV online, or through a console, or on Netflix.  And they probably also play games, and text on their phone, and spend hours on Twitter or Facebook.

I don't have cable.

But that doesn't mean that I don't spend too much time staring at a screen.

In between writing, and blogging, and reading blogs, and watching TV shows online, and playing Plants vs Zombies (that game is addictive), and researching whatever it is that I'm geeking out about (at the moment, it's aquaponics), and pretending that I understand Twitter, and - oh yeah - working, I would be embarrassed to tell you how much time I spend staring at a screen every day.

I love my computer.  I really do. 

For the past six months, ever since I started Clay Baboons, I've enjoyed starting my day by reading blogs and doing this:

I have always, without fail, visited the blog of every single person who commented here.  More often than not, I also replied to those comments on my own blog.  It was easy to do when I only updated once or twice a week.  My readers are smart, funny people who have interesting things to say. 

But this daily blogging has made it really difficult.  My list of new blogs to visit keeps getting longer and longer.  My blog reader had 641 unread posts as of this morning.

Somewhere around the letter J or K, I started feeling twitchy.  I would look at the long list of unread posts, and my over-stuffed inbox, and it would actually make me sad.  I know that there are a million things in the world to get sad about, and having too many funny or thought-provoking things to read really doesn't rate very high on the list of the world's tragedies, but there you have it.  I was sad.

And so somewhere around the letter M, I just kind of gave up.  I read a few blogs, but I didn't even try to keep up anymore.  The list kept getting longer and longer, so I just pretended that it wasn't there. 

Instead, I watched and re-watched funny music videos on Youtube, like this:

Only really funny if you've seen the original (which was actually a cover of the real original).

And this:

It's all in palindromes! (and, of course, here's the original by Bob Dylan) 

And this:

I love Bret. (lyrics are not exactly kid friendly)

And watching would make me laugh for a few minutes, and then I'd feel sad again because I spent so much time online and accomplished nothing.  And then I'd remember that I still had to write tomorrow's blog post, and empty the dishwasher, and walk the dog.  And then I'd get cranky and stay up too late and get crankier and then be sad some more.

The fact is that this graph that I made a few months ago applies to my life times a million:

I still have my list. I'm still going to visit every single one of your blogs.  But it might take me a while to get there.

For now, I need to turn off my computer and go read an actual book.
Edited to add: we had a bunch of people over for a BBQ and campfire last night. There's a lot of food in the house. The only thing better than curling up with a good book is curling up with a good book and a plate of leftover party food.