how much time do you spend on online entertainment each day?

[sv2007]

Here's something interesting. After you've voted, now go measure your actual time.

I decided to measure my online leisure time (e.g. reading news, reading articles, research stocks, participating in forums, streaming video/music, shopping). Wikipedia is evil ! Once you dive into an article, you just get trapped in its links.

I measure by just casually timing myself for the past week, so the measurement is probably a lower bound of my normal (I know because of the extra step of keeping time, I sometimes just didn't bother going online).

The result is surprising!

Over a 1 week period, I spent approximately 3hrs per day during online entertainment. I was expecting maybe 1 hr (actually less). It's not that I think online entertainment is bad, it is more the surprise that I don't notice how much time I spend on it.

3 hrs/day = 21hr/wk; that's a lot of time !

Now, as the saying goes: time is money, that 21hr/wk (instead of my expected < 7 hr/wk), is a lot.

[disneysteve]

Way too much.

[StormRichards]

Curious as to whether you want time spent FROM work included in our answer?

To me, that is time that I really don't care to monitor or worry about since I am basically just filling idle time. I am not forgoing anything on a personal level when I surf the internet from work.

[disneysteve]

Curious as to whether you want time spent FROM work included in our answer?

Thanks to my iPhone, I'm able to participate in online stuff while doing other things so if I spend 30 minutes playing a game while sitting and watching TV, that's different than if I did each activity separately.

As for work, same thing. I will frequently watch something on Netflix while I'm eating lunch or doing paperwork at my office. So I'm not wasting time online because I'm working at the same time.

At my urgent care job, for the most part if there isn't a patient waiting to be seen, there's really nothing for me to do - so I go online to fill the time. Sometimes it's just a few minutes. On a really slow shift, it could be a couple of hours.

[StormRichards]

There are days that I am online several hours during work. It all depends on the workload for that particular day.

At home, I try to keep it to around an hour. Sometimes I am online while watching TV.

[sv2007]

I measure all the time I spend online that can be used for other things. Most of my Internet surfing is done while WFH; I just open up my forum virtual machine and surf when I feel like a break from work. I measure this time. -- Like right now ; I'm working and surfing. I'd measure this time since if I'm surfing, I'm not working : )

[disneysteve]

I'd measure this time since if I'm surfing, I'm not working : )

Makes sense. As I said, though, sometimes I'm enjoying online entertainment AND working at the same time. Pretty often, actually.

[StormRichards]

I really don't see the point to measure time spent while on the corporate clock. I am stuck in that chair without work to do, os just passing the time.

[disneysteve]

I really don't see the point to measure time spent while on the corporate clock. I am stuck in that chair without work to do, os just passing the time.

There could be situations where it matters.

For example, I do a lot of online professional surveys. I got invited to way more than I actually do, partly because I get caught up doing other things. So some of the time that I spend posting to this site, for example, I could be doing a survey and making some money.

Of course, I just have no desire to spend every free second generating income. I need some down time, some entertainment, a mental break from work. But I'm cognizant of the fact that I could be earning more if I really put my mind to it.

[rennigade]

I couldnt vote because it only went up to 9 hours. Im on the computer all day. Even when working im still browsing 95% of the time. Combine that with phone and im over 9 hours a day.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I spend during the day maybe 1 hour and definitely after the kids go to bed 2-3 hours. Typically just chilling on couch watching tv and reading email.

[timothycobb]

I guess 2- 3 hours per day.

[clatoden99]

I spend about one hour on social media which includes Face Book and Whats up. I try to do it at one go so that I do not interrupt what I have to do through the day. Normally look at the posts and messages in the night and answer what needs to be replied. If I am travelling and waiting on airports or railway stations I spend more time on social media as well as on catching up with answering the pending E Mails.

[thestrongprofessional]

Daily entertainment time

I spend about 1 hour per day on social media, surfing the web etc. I've made it a point to cut down on my social media/email time and focus more on being productive during my off time. If I'm not at work (I rarely check social feeds there) I'm either writing for my blog, hanging out with my girlfriend or engaging in some of my extracurricular activities (toastmasters, working out, salsa dancing etc). I've noticed when I fill up the time with other fun activities, I don't feel the need to be on social media/email. On the weekends my time on social feeds and email increases to about 2 hours or so.

Raphael

[Like2Plan]

A lot! I spend a lot of time on the internet.

I check airfares (because I might want to take a trip if the fares are low enough )

Lately, I have been checking dates for my timeshare. And, checking to see if dates are posted for the football schedule for DH's college team (we tailgate the home games, so I want to make sure the 2 activities don't conflict--I can't really do anything until they post the dates ).

I do genealogy research online, but sometimes I hit a dead end and have to take a break.

I also stop by the discussion boards. There are 3 or 4 I skim every day.

Last month, we did some traveling the first part of the month, I had several Christmas lunches and we had company the last 2 weeks of the month, so I didn't spend as much time on line. We'll see how it goes this month.