30 Oct How the Web Creates and Consumes Your Free Time
The Web offers more and more possibilities each day. This has a lot to do with the active role the users have taken in recent years, in which online content is both created and viewed by users. To be honest, nobody knows what the users want better than the users themselves. A lot of projects and online software solutions have sprouted from communities of people who needed the same thing and by using the Web, they networked and made their wishes into reality.
These days, there is a growing concern about people spending too much time on the Web and they, therefore, neglect their obligations but is this really true? As with all claims of this sort, there is some truth to it but it is not as grim as some people claim. Let’s see some of the upsides and some of the downsides of the world wide web.
Wasting time
The Web can be an addictive place and this addictiveness can be triggered regardless of the users’ age. Of course, older people have a better chance of avoiding getting hooked due to the fact that they were not born into it, they merely adopted it. Let’s look at some of the biggest culprits of time wasting on the Web.
Online games
Regardless if you go for MMORPG, different types of MOBAs like League of Legends or DOTA 2 or you simply rummage through archives of online flash games and play silly duck shooting games, you can waste a lot of time in this manner. Statistics say that, as a planet, we spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games but this is an overall statistic and I’m really doubtful about its accuracy. Regardless of this, a lot of time wasting potential here.
Social Networks
Most people do this these days. Social networks are the gods of procrastination, giving us the illusion of doing something while we are just constantly scrolling down, chatting with friends or posting stuff. According to statistics, on average, the time a user from the US spent on social networks a week in 2006 was 4.7, while this number has risen exponentially and in 2011 it was 6.9 hours a week. Social networks are also a gateway for further surfing.
Videos
YouTube and similar video sharing platforms are magical places where interesting and new video content constantly appears. Around 100 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every second and over 6 billion hours of videos are viewed each month. Those are some big numbers and if anybody asked me – are we spending too much time watching videos online – I would have to say yes.
On the other hand, if we want to talk about addictiveness, there are people who are addicted to chocolate and this has more to do with self-control than the Web itself.
Saving time
The other side of the coin actually shows a lot of ways we can save time that we previously had to waste running around to accomplish tasks. A lot of things can now be accomplished from the comfort of your home without ever needing to rely on people. Here are just some of them.
Employment & Hiring
Reaching people with the right skills for the job has never been so easy. In a matter of minutes, you can log into your Elance account and find new employees. The same goes for finding work if you are unemployed. In fact, thanks to the web, we now have a much higher number of freelancers who don’t plan on ever being formally employed by a company.
Banking & Loans
Online banking was a pre-requirement for online shopping and thanks to this commodity, you can now take care of your bills without ever going to the bank. The same goes for checking your balance, transferring money from account to account and so on. These days, you can apply for quick and secure loans without ever going to the bank!
Shopping
Amazon, eBay, DHGate and a bunch of other websites offer you an abundance of shopping options with the goods delivered to your doorstep. You can basically buy anything from clothes to shoes, from knives to swords, scuba diving equipment, books, toys or boats. The fact that online users now have a great capability to be mobile gives them the option to do their shopping from virtually anywhere.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the way the Web saves time. No matter what you do, professionally or in your private time, there is probably a faster, more efficient way of doing it online.
The verdict
Well, I look at things from this angle – the time wasting aspect of the online environment is potentially harmful but excessive use of almost anything has a negative effect on human behavior while the time saving potential of the web is permanent and constant. Wouldn’t you agree?
