What do you do on your computer????

[Katie77]

After talking to a friend, decided to ask this question......just what do you do on your computer?

Are you in any other forums?....Do you spend much time on Facebook, and why?...What games if any, do you play on the net?.....Are you in a  routine of when you turn your computer on?.....How many hours a day do you spend on it?....Do you have any special sites that you enjoy going into?.....Do you think you spend too much time on the computer?....Do you spend time on your work computer, for personal things?......What could you NOT survive without on the internet?

I'll do my post shortly......

[Katie77]

Well, the first thing I do when I get out of bed is (go to the bathroom)...next, turn on my laptop, and while thats logging in, I make a big mug of tea.

First thing I look at is the news,  check emails, then go into the site of the local newspaper and read the local news, and I often post comments on any particular item that is of interest to me. Then in no particular order, I see whats happening with friends on Facebook and Bettermost....mostly just reading, adding very few comments.

Then I usually play some games on Facebook....I love Texas Holdem Poker, Slots, and I have 4 games of Scrabble going with two different friends, where we progressively have our turn when we are online. I've noticed the Scrabble on Facebook, is not available to the US or Canada, dont know why, must be some copyright thing. Depending on whether or not I have anything else to do that day, I can amuse myself with poker for several hours. I dont play for real money, but still get just as much thrill out of winning games. The beauty of these games is that they are running 24/7...so if I wake up in the middle of the night, I know I can get on there and have a game.Its really amazing, the miracle of the internet, when playing poker I sit at a table with 8 other players, from all over the world who are playing in real time. Its quite odd, when its night time for them, and morning for me. We can chat to one another if we feel like it too.

I find that most emails I get and send are "joke" type emails....rarely correspondence. I keep in touch with my friends through instant message mostly, or Skype which is a godsend with my son living overseas.

I do all my banking on the internet. Over here in Oz, 99 percent of wages goes directly into your bank account. In fact, cheques are rarely used even from Government departments, so with internet banking I pay all my bills, and when I need cash I use an ATM, so rarely have need to go into a bank.

On Saturday it is race day. I have my TV tuned into the race station, where I can watch every major horse race in Australia, live. I have an internet betting account, (where I do use real money), which shows every horse race, and betting odds, and can place a bet right up to the time that the race starts. I only bet in 2 or 3 dollar wagers, so it is not to win (or lose) money so much, as to have an entertaining Saturday afternoon. Just a footnote.....Gambling in some form or another is a favourite pastime of most Aussies, in fact it has been said that we would bet on two flys crawling up a wall...

Do I spend too much time on my computer......Hell yeah....especially since I have been on my own here. I still have time to visit friends and family, and do the little housework I have, and watch some TV....but my computer is my biggest form of entertainment and social outlet. I do feel lucky, that although I never grew up with computers, I came in on the back end and was still capable of learning how they work. Wow, would I have loved to have had a computer going to school, how much easier would it have been. When I see what my 12 yr old grandson can do I realise I dont know much at all.

So there you have it, my guilty pleasure of spending hours on the net.....but do I feel guilty about it....HELL NO!!!!

[Lynne]

I definitely spend too much time on my computer, or its mobile equivalent, my iPhone.

Almost all of my job-search activities are computer-based and I've taken a few computer-based exams over the past few years for work or the teacher certification.

My communication with friends are via Gmail or Facebook or PMs.

More urgent check-ins go or come via text - people I'm keeping updated on Mom's progress fairly regularly, including my brother.

I check my bank account and do most bill-paying on-line.

I check several news sites almost every day - New York Times, BBC, Truthout, Sojourner

I play a couple of games via FB - Gardens of Time and Bellwood and Black.

I use the iPhone for Scrabble and Family Feud - but those work via the FB login as well.

I started a livejournal account that is my personal journal, separate from the one I use when I'm following fan fiction, which still happens, just not as often anymore.

My friend Susan is working in India - I follow her blog weekly at WordPress - and I get email to tell me she's made a new entry.

I keep my calendar in both places - I've ditched the Daytimer entirely (this year the first year ever)

My phone also tells me the bus schedule and gets me where I'm going via Google maps.

Most of news about my Meeting comes through an email announce list we have.

Since I started volunteering for Elizabeth Warren's campaign, all the news about volunteer activities, where and when, comes via email as well, although there's an occasional phone call.

I don't watch TV - I watch old episodes or movies on Netflix - the laptop is better for this, but I can do it on the phone.

I order groceries for Mom and Chris online via Peapod about every other week and they are delivered the next day.

I read books using Nook, either on the laptop or the phone.

All new music is both places - one day I will need to transfer all of my music to digital, but that seems like a big job.

In the past few days, I've been studying for the MA teaching licensure exam in physics and had to actually get out pencil and paper - crazy, huh?  Even then, I downloaded a new scientific calculator to my phone - the one that comes with the iPhone doesn't have all the functions I need.

And I'm probably forgetting 50 things.

 

[delalluvia]

I am a member of several sites of my hobbies/interests.

On weekends and evenings, I check them, read them anything new that interests me, make comments.

I check my e-mail, read the news and weather and editorials and make comments.

I also research things that have piqued my interest, shop and then use my computer to research for my fiction writing and of course word processing for my actual manuscripts.  I scrapbook and use download images from the web for my books.

[Mandy21]

Read a book this morning titled "How We Love Now" by Suzanne Braun Levine, about how women in their 40's and beyond are looking at love in all aspects of their lives in this brave new world we live in.  There was a chapter about how women are enjoying the internet and using it as a social communication tool.  A paragraph I thought was lovely and sort of pertinent to this thread:

"When it comes to how we connect and whom we connect with, all bets are off.  The permeable membrane between the world we live in and cyberspace makes for wondrous and confusing emotional transmogrifications."

I would have to agree:)

[RouxB]

I pretty much live on my computer/phone. I fire it up first thing and check email (phone) and calendar. I spend no time at all on Facebook unless forced by a message. I spend a significant amount of time job hunting and reading. My most visited sites are Indeed.com, here, Live Journal (though I have been missing from there for a couple of months) Goodreads, Kindle Cloud Reader, Google Play Books and a couple of other reading sites best left undisclosed (should I decide to run for public office some day  ). And I draw house plans. All this while the TV is going. I am the queen of multi tasking-okay, attention deficit disorder.

I can play solitaire, spider solitaire and Phase 10 for hours. Unfortunately housework does not fit into my "busy" schedule.

I am a slacker.

[Mandy21]

I can play solitaire, spider solitaire and Phase 10 for hours. Unfortunately housework does not fit into my "busy" schedule.

I'm same way with Solitaire.  I could play it (nearly) every minute of every waking hour.

After about 8 straight hours,

when my eyes finally begin to glaze over,

and my butt loses all semblance of feeling of any kind,

and my right hand has morphed in to a permanent claw,

I lift myself from the chair slowly,

and get out the deck of cards and play it for real. 


Spider Solitaire actually requires you to engage your brain, so I'm not interested.


Tell me, tell me, tell me -- what is this "Phase 10"

[RouxB]

Phase 10 is a rummy type card game that requires you to complete 10 phasese (hands) before the competion does. It is a game staple with my family and it recently came out for android. HOURS spent playing it.

[CellarDweller]

What do I do?

Sometimes Skype, Facebook, and the forums of course.

[Katie77]

I remember reading an item in a newspaper about 20 years ago.....It said, that in 10 years time every home would have a computer.........

I remember thinking, "well I know one house that wont have one"......not that I had anything morally against them, I just didn't think I would ever find a use for one.

  .....Sometimes here at home, there are 5 of us all using some kind of computer at the one time....

[CellarDweller]

LOL

I know when I was at my parents place, there were three of us using the computer at various times.  Now it's just mom & chris, dad can't be bothered.

 

[Peter John Shields]

Mainly for writing.
Then email and I listen to The Archers on radio 4 every day - that's my treat.