Internet Usage

A Few of My Favorite Things

I’ve been thinking about how I spend my internet time (as part of trying to organize my time better).  I bet if I polled my friends about their internet time, I’d get many different answers and percentages.  Does it say something about your personality?  I’m sure it does.

For me, there’s the ubiquitous Facebook, Google and Twitter.  I also follow the blog of Jim Hines, a fantasy writer- check out his pose-off with John Scalzi (a protest about how women are potrayed on cover art).  I go on to youtube and watch shows from Geek and Sundry,  including Tabletop, Sword and Lazer, the Flog and more.  I watch the Daily Show with John Stewart. I go on my library system’s catalog to request, renew and research books.  I use Goodreads to track my reading.

I use Ralan’s Webstravaganza for my launching point for finding writing markets.

I use Sparkpeople as my health inspiration- it is a free site that helps people track their nutrition, exercise and other health issues.

I write my blog.  I find pictures and pin them onto Pinterest, and look through what others have pinned.  I look up knitting patterns in Ravelry.  I enjoy The Mary Sue– a sci-fi fan site for women.  I try not to get bogged down in reading comments, because there is so much vitriol and ignorance out there that it could really ruin your day.  I hop onto our local newspaper’s website (and do a search for our city to see if anything bad has happened).

When I shop, I usually go to Amazon, but also to Thinkgeek, L.L. Bean, The Pyramid collection, or Signals catalog.

I occasionally go to Mental Floss or Unshelved.  If I’ve had a bad day, I visit Engrish and Cuteoverload, usually one after the other.  I’ve stopped playing games online, because I don’t have enough time and they don’t provide me enough pleasure to make it worth my while.  If I had lots of time on my hands I’d play world of Warcraft.

Wow, this list doesn’t even include what I do for work! I definitely need to keep my eye on internet usage and my time.  How about you?  When you are online, what are you doing more than 50% of the time?