Hey, I’m a bit curious how many of y’all out there are reading this column from a real newspaper, one made of paper and ink, or off some form of electronic gadgetry. Personally, I prefer reading from books and newspapers than off some computer screen. I really hate trying to read texts from my phone with that tiny screen and even smaller words. Besides, by the time I find the right button to push to bring up the text message, I’ve brought up my address book, calculator and called some confused resident of Bangkok.
No sir, I don’t like spending much time in front of a computer screen when I’m away from my job. We rely on the computer a lot at work, and after a week of staring at a fuzzy screen and clicking a dadgum mouse, I’m ready to sit out on the deck and look out into trees and wildflowers, watching the deer and antelope for a few hours. I might even grab a paperback book to read or work a New York Times crossword puzzle to kill some time before I declare it’s happy hour out on the Crow’s Nest.
I must confess that I check my Facebook page and my emails every day, but I’m rarely on the home computer for more than 10 minutes. OK, I do write this column on my computer, and I average about five words a minute, less if I’m buzzed on beer, so to type an entire column, it takes me about three days and a case of Lone Star.
It seems everybody is addicted to electronic communication and social networking. Everywhere I go I see people texting on phones, surfing the web or playing internet games. I’ve sat at restaurants and watched a table of four all messing with their phones. I see a kid walking to his bus stop every morning with his eyes glued to his phone and not looking at approaching vehicles. He might be playing Angry Birds, but as I watch him, I am reminded of Frogger.
According to my extensive research, the average American spends 33 minutes a day just on Facebook alone. That’s almost 8 hours a month. And according to some further data I unearthed, the average Pinterest fanatic spends 98 minutes per month perusing that site. Sixty percent of Pinterest addicts are women and the other 40% are men with Low T or ones who took a wrong turn cruising down the internet highway.
The average American spends 32 hours per month online. Collectively, Americans spend the equivalence of 100,000 years surfing the web each month. If you add up all the time internet users throughout the world are online each month, it equals 4 million years. That sounds like a lot of lost time and a ton of wasted electricity to me.
How ‘bout a few facts on cell phone usage? There are approximately 4 billion cell phones in the world, and 25% are smart phones. In 2012, 9.8 trillion text messages were sent worldwide, mostly from people between 18-29 years of age. Here in the U.S., folks who text regularly send or receive on average 35 messages a day. It is reported that 95% of text messages are opened and read within minutes of receiving them. I’m not quite that fast.
I keep my phone set to vibrate, especially when I’m out on the tractor or running a chainsaw. It takes me several minutes to retrieve my phone from my pocket once I realize that humming and vibration didn’t come from a rattler in the tall grass and I’m finished jumping around like a jack rabbit on meth. After pulling my phone out, I have to remove my safety glasses, put on my readers, and step under a shade tree to cut out the glare on the screen. Once I see who sent me a message, I spend another 5-10 minutes trying to remember how to retrieve the message and not call Chin Cheng Chung again. He’s really getting annoyed at me.
I prefer to ignore my phone until I get back home, or when I have to sneak behind a tree to relieve myself. Then I have the dilemma of how to safely hold all business at hand if you catch my drift. So if one of y’all texts me and I don’t reply right away, either I’m on my tractor or I just dropped my phone and peed on my foot.
I never text behind the wheel whether I’m on a Ford tractor or my Chevy truck. Over one-third of all drivers text while driving, and 13% surf the internet while cruising down busy highways at high speeds. Statistics show you are twenty-three times more likely to have an accident while texting, and even more likely to crash if you are surfing porn sites. One reason I won’t text and drive is I have no desire to kill myself, fellow passengers or innocent people. I won’t text while driving my tractor because there’s no market for plowed beef.
I just don’t understand why folks feel they have to be in constant contact with friends and family. So many people can’t help but look at their phones every five minutes. Is the world moving so quickly that your life may change if you don’t check your phone every few minutes? Your life would drastically be altered if you see a new Facebook post and not that red light ahead. Won’t that post still be there in 15 minutes when you arrive safely at home? What’s an extra fifteen minutes? Maybe the life of some young mother and her precious child, or a traffic cop trying to warn drivers of an accident ahead.
I don’t like wasting time and energy seeing what other people are doing when there’s so many things for me to do elsewhere. For that one hour a day one spends online, think of what you could’ve accomplished. The lawn could’ve been mowed, the bathrooms could’ve been cleaned, or you could’ve spent the time using your phone to call and actually speaking to your mother instead of texting her to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. My free time is too valuable to waste in front of a computer. I’d rather spend that extra time wasted out at the Crow’s Nest.
