Online Recluse
By Mr.e
It’s past midnight. Your significant other hit the hay hours ago and the
cats are curled up for the night. You’re contemplating either going to
bed or making a pot of coffee.
Go ahead and do it, make that coffee I mean. And stay up. And get to bed ‘who’
knows when.
This scenario sans coffee has played itself out in this household more than
a few times. Did I have a good reason to stay up? Not really. Aside from writing,
doing some (re)searching, the plain old curious Web surfing urge eats up a lot
of time that flies by when I’m strapped into this chair.
Routine: I get out of bed, stumble over to the machine, turn ‘it’
on, head over to put on the pot of coffee and head for the bathroom. I can’t
count the number of times a day I sit down at this desk to do whatever on the
analytical engine. ‘It’ pretty much is the last thing that is shut
off at night before I drag my weary eyeballs into bed.
The necessity for my presence in front of this Web altar is dictated by the
needs and maintenance requirements of the home based Internet business and other
online obligations.
Now that more and more of us are connecting, working from home is becoming a
viable and profitable option for some. However, separating home from work becomes
more difficult. It’s easy not to leave the @home office at 6pm and people
who work @home tend to spend more time at the computer.
If you work with your machine and your interests are computer based, it is easy
to see how and why more and more computer users are becoming socially reclusive,
possibly only venturing out (at night) to buy ink refills and paper for their
hungry printers. The rest can be done online.
Check out Dotcomguy. Now there’s an example of extreme and curious social
reclusiveness. Ok, so he has a lot of people over, being a new media curiosity
and all, but in essence he’s devoted himself to publicly living online.
I wouldn’t doubt it if there are many others out there who’ve gone
the same route sans the media hype, sponsors and attention that this bloke is
getting. I wonder if Dotcomguy secretly wishes he could crawl under a real rock
for some peace and quiet?
This machine is linked to the net via cable and I confess that this cable connection
fosters my addictive personality via the nonstop access to information that
cable permits. That being said and out in the open, can I consider myself on
the first step to rehabilitation and healing? Don’t think so.
Do I like sitting in front of this screen? Of course. Getting and sharing information
and drivel alike with a wide and connected audience is a bit of a rush. The
e-mail thing is great too. I’ve always looked forward to the personal mail
in the box. I’m a letter writer at heart and I enjoy replying to incoming
missives.
In past years the physical letter thing kind of dwindled away, but what with
the electronic version of communications, the loss of actual letters penned
on paper is not all that unfortunate.
After our last system upgrade, I often joked that using the new machine was
like being attached to the desk via techno handcuffs. I don’t watch as
much TV anymore (get my news online) and I read quite a bit online. In terms
of fostering literacy those are good things.
If I didn’t have any outside obligations (outside defined as any area away
from the desk) such as home and hearth related responsibilities, I’m afraid
I’d have to equip this desk with a lazy boy and pillows for those times
that I just can’t keep my eyes open any longer.
Taking out the trash is also a lot easier on the screen and you can always e-mail
mom or Joe at the corner store to order more milk or some eggs. "Just leave
it on the door step".
The term "Eternal Vigilance" takes on a more exciting meaning when
applied to the Web.