A Discussion comparing Internet Internet and Internet Real
So recently, partly because I'm sick (so I'm spending more time in front of the computer doing almost nothing), I starting posting on message boards again... and then last night as I was going to bed, I made up these terms, Internet Internet (I:I) and Internet Real (I:R) and started thinking about them and how I should change how much I do of either. Additionally, we can expand I:I and I:R to Something:NotReal and Something:Real, but for now we'll talk about I:I and I:R.
The first I stands for Internet, and it represents the activities we do on the internet. Things like that are checking e-mail, writing blog posts, msning people, reading and writing on message boards, reading reviews for games, writing reviews for games, buying things, etc. As I said, you can expand this I into S, which is something, which just signifies any activity, anywhere.
The second I or R (or in the expanded version, Real and not Real) is a categorization of the activity, and what it creates, or how it is helpful. More concretely, here are some examples.
So let's say you're on msn, and you message Ambrose, and you ask him "wanna do something later?" And then there's a discussion about dinner and going out or whatever. This would fit into I:R, Internet -> Real, because it's an event on the internet, and the outcome is that it produces something in real life. You are talking to Ambrose on msn, which is an Internet event, and it produces a plan for what will happen in real life soon. Similarly, buying something online is I:R, and more often than not, reading a review of a movie online or of a product, would also affect you nicely in real life.
However, let's say you're on a random message board, and someone writes a post like, "on a scale of 1-10, how hot is this girl?" and they post a picture of a girl. So you're reading the thread, you see other random people have answers and comments, and then you yourself rate the girl. This is an I:I event. You're doing stuff on the internet, and you are just contributing to the internet. Clicking on the thread, reading the post, saving the picture of the girl to your computer... it doesn't do anything for you in real life, you're just spending time on the internet, doing stuff for the internet.
There are some things in life that are more I:R or S:R than others, and I'd like to call them... the ones that create resources for you. By resources, I mean things that help you out... the most common resources are money, time, some sort of health resource, and perhaps some sort of skill resource. Working gives you money, doing sports gives you health, learning to program gives you skill, eating gives you energy, etc...
So, the next thing that naturally should come out of my mouth is: I:I stuff is useless. To go more extreme, you would also say that things that do not produce resources are also useless. It's not entirely true, but you get the point. It gets a bit more confusing when you add the word "PLAY". By definition, playing is intrinsically fun, and does not produce anything but we still do it because it's fun. Okay, so I don't like to throw entertainment out the window, but we can definitely have less of it.
Then there's the ... "contribution" / "volunteer" aspect. As I said, reading a movie review is an I:R event, but I think WRITING a movie review is an I:I event. You write the review, not generally for real life, but because you want to help others. It doesn't really bring you a resource either. I would classify it as an I:I event, but it is a "contribution" / "volunteer" event, which means you contribute something meaningful or ... you just want to contribute it anyway, so... it might be an exception. Similarly, reading blog posts miight be I:R, writing them is typically I:I, although some of my blog posts have call-to-actions, like "do you want to do stuff this weekend?", but the rest of the blog post is typically I:I.
So... let's analyze me, since that's why I wrote this. I find that a lot of the activity I do is I:I (or more generally, S:NR), and additionally, not resource producing. While I was doing the message board thing this weekend, too much of it is I:I. Reading random things, writing and responding to random topics, nothing really worthy to learn from. There might be a thread on there, like, a person is having trouble with his girlfriend. For that person, it might be an I:R event (if it is indeed real), for everyone else responding, it's an I:I event, or in some cases, it's an I:I:contribute event.
That said, I should probably stop doing the message board thing. It's not bringing in money, it's not bringing in anything real, and in terms of intrinsic fun... it's not that fun.
I like to play games or watch movies. These are the intrinsic fun things, which means I can cut some of them out. People might argue that playing games gives you some sort of hand-eye co-ordination skill, but we all know that's a bunch of bullcrap. Movies enrich your mind, but... far too often they don't.
Creating videos, and putting them up on youtube/etc. This is a hobby, once again, intrinsic. I might say that it builds toward some career, or it's useful for portfolio/resume... and in some cases it is, but in general it's just fun. Building flash games though, that might be better portfolio/resume oriented.
I should exercise more. It's a resource gaining activity. I should eat better food, so it also gains better resources. I know, these are all things that I already tell myself, but now I'm doing it in a different way, kind of. So maybe later today when I'm bored, then instead of visiting some message boards or playing Call of Duty 4, I should just do some pushups or exercise, and see how far I can go. Who knows. Maybe exercise can become fun!
Anyway, that's this post. I'm not going to cut out too many fun things yet, except maybe the message boards thing, that's pretty useless. Maybe I'll make more flash games... or something.... Also, this may be a reason why people don't post in their blogs as often as they want to.
The first I stands for Internet, and it represents the activities we do on the internet. Things like that are checking e-mail, writing blog posts, msning people, reading and writing on message boards, reading reviews for games, writing reviews for games, buying things, etc. As I said, you can expand this I into S, which is something, which just signifies any activity, anywhere.
The second I or R (or in the expanded version, Real and not Real) is a categorization of the activity, and what it creates, or how it is helpful. More concretely, here are some examples.
So let's say you're on msn, and you message Ambrose, and you ask him "wanna do something later?" And then there's a discussion about dinner and going out or whatever. This would fit into I:R, Internet -> Real, because it's an event on the internet, and the outcome is that it produces something in real life. You are talking to Ambrose on msn, which is an Internet event, and it produces a plan for what will happen in real life soon. Similarly, buying something online is I:R, and more often than not, reading a review of a movie online or of a product, would also affect you nicely in real life.
However, let's say you're on a random message board, and someone writes a post like, "on a scale of 1-10, how hot is this girl?" and they post a picture of a girl. So you're reading the thread, you see other random people have answers and comments, and then you yourself rate the girl. This is an I:I event. You're doing stuff on the internet, and you are just contributing to the internet. Clicking on the thread, reading the post, saving the picture of the girl to your computer... it doesn't do anything for you in real life, you're just spending time on the internet, doing stuff for the internet.
There are some things in life that are more I:R or S:R than others, and I'd like to call them... the ones that create resources for you. By resources, I mean things that help you out... the most common resources are money, time, some sort of health resource, and perhaps some sort of skill resource. Working gives you money, doing sports gives you health, learning to program gives you skill, eating gives you energy, etc...
So, the next thing that naturally should come out of my mouth is: I:I stuff is useless. To go more extreme, you would also say that things that do not produce resources are also useless. It's not entirely true, but you get the point. It gets a bit more confusing when you add the word "PLAY". By definition, playing is intrinsically fun, and does not produce anything but we still do it because it's fun. Okay, so I don't like to throw entertainment out the window, but we can definitely have less of it.
Then there's the ... "contribution" / "volunteer" aspect. As I said, reading a movie review is an I:R event, but I think WRITING a movie review is an I:I event. You write the review, not generally for real life, but because you want to help others. It doesn't really bring you a resource either. I would classify it as an I:I event, but it is a "contribution" / "volunteer" event, which means you contribute something meaningful or ... you just want to contribute it anyway, so... it might be an exception. Similarly, reading blog posts miight be I:R, writing them is typically I:I, although some of my blog posts have call-to-actions, like "do you want to do stuff this weekend?", but the rest of the blog post is typically I:I.
So... let's analyze me, since that's why I wrote this. I find that a lot of the activity I do is I:I (or more generally, S:NR), and additionally, not resource producing. While I was doing the message board thing this weekend, too much of it is I:I. Reading random things, writing and responding to random topics, nothing really worthy to learn from. There might be a thread on there, like, a person is having trouble with his girlfriend. For that person, it might be an I:R event (if it is indeed real), for everyone else responding, it's an I:I event, or in some cases, it's an I:I:contribute event.
That said, I should probably stop doing the message board thing. It's not bringing in money, it's not bringing in anything real, and in terms of intrinsic fun... it's not that fun.
I like to play games or watch movies. These are the intrinsic fun things, which means I can cut some of them out. People might argue that playing games gives you some sort of hand-eye co-ordination skill, but we all know that's a bunch of bullcrap. Movies enrich your mind, but... far too often they don't.
Creating videos, and putting them up on youtube/etc. This is a hobby, once again, intrinsic. I might say that it builds toward some career, or it's useful for portfolio/resume... and in some cases it is, but in general it's just fun. Building flash games though, that might be better portfolio/resume oriented.
I should exercise more. It's a resource gaining activity. I should eat better food, so it also gains better resources. I know, these are all things that I already tell myself, but now I'm doing it in a different way, kind of. So maybe later today when I'm bored, then instead of visiting some message boards or playing Call of Duty 4, I should just do some pushups or exercise, and see how far I can go. Who knows. Maybe exercise can become fun!
Anyway, that's this post. I'm not going to cut out too many fun things yet, except maybe the message boards thing, that's pretty useless. Maybe I'll make more flash games... or something.... Also, this may be a reason why people don't post in their blogs as often as they want to.
posted by Unknown at 11:33 AM
1 Comments:
Read the first four paragrpahs, will read the rest later, but just to say that I thnk this kind of questioning is somethinig I've done, too. and it's a good kind of line of questioning to do; challenges you to see the real worth of what you're doing, instead of just doing them (and not realizing thatyo'ud rather not) just out of "habit", when you could be easily doing things differnetly.. .
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