11043 Living your life on the internet.

Interesting comments, given the time of your posting. :rollingeyes:

I'm sure you know that nobody is being paid to post here, so I wonder why it matters to you how much time and effort other members may put into this forum?

If your life is rich enough that this forum merits no more than just an occasional, brief visit and the odd contribution now and then, why not just be grateful for what you have, take whatever positive you can from here and allow others to do the same in their own way? Nobody is forcing you to read those 4,000 messages you refer to; there's even an "Ignore" feature you can use if you feel a particular member never says anything worth your time.

And, of course, nobody is forcing you to read [I]anything[/I] here.

Al

First of all, let me clarify for you that there is no payment for any post... you do it basically because you like to communicate with other people. The number of posts also depend on the length of the time you have been participating in the Forum.
I cannot speak for the others, but I have a full life and plenty to do all day. I go out twice, in the morning and in the afternoon, with my husband or cousins and friends, I talk on the phone a couple of times with my daughters who live overseas, I watch TV, mainly current affairs in French and Spanish and any other program which may be of interest, I also go to the movies once or twice a week and watch movies at home plus I have my own home and my husband to take care of. I read books.... at least 4 every month, I go to book shops to see what is new and available, go to church, walk my dog and I also cook. So I have a very busy life. I still have the time to check the Forum several times a day and I contribute by posting in it, either comments or even my own threads. I am in several groups as well. Twice a year at least, we go and spend time in our house in Italy and I also go on shorter trips to other places. I talk all the time and I am the first one to say hello to neighbours and acquaintances I may meet when I go out.
You may see that I am not worried about my life which is very full and I am not scared of the world, on the contrary. The forum for me is plain entertainment. I guess that many others do about the same. I would be more worried of those who lurk in the dark, silently move from Forum to Forum and do not dare to post an opinion or contribute with something that could be interesting to others.

To answer some of your questions I can only speak for myself here.I'm certain you're going to get a wide selection of answers from a very diverse crowd though.

I don't live on the 'net' 24/7, or - for that matter 12/7. For me, it's nearer 6/6 I guess. I am retired and that's obviously a big help. Though I do still take one or two translating jobs occaisionally - it is no longer a full (or even anywhere near a part) time 'job'. I now only do [I]that[/I] 'if I feel like it'. I value the time I have now to do 'What I [U]WANT[/U] to' and not 'What I've [U]GOT[/U] to'! and that time [I]does not[/I] include writing as many posts as possible 'anywhere'!!!!

I wander around several sites like this one over the course of the day and when I'm on line, or following a particular thread, or watching an argument/discussion develop - then I may pop back quite often to have a peep. That could give the impression that I'm on a particular site 'all the time' when in fact that isn't the case.

I am also a partner/administrator on a growing site and not even 'Admin' or our 'Mods' get paid there. In fact, instead of putting money into our pockets, my partner and I find we have to take it out to keep our 'non profit' site running. I don't know what the situation might be here regarding 'paid jobs' but I can say that here, and at every other site that I frequent there has never been any mention of a 'pay per post' system. [I]'One line'[/I] posts are bad enough as it is, imagine if they were a way of earning money too.... we would be totally inundated with 'nuts' posting the darned things!

No - I think if you want to [I]earn money[/I] by spending your life on sites like this on the 'net' then you would have to go to Nigeria and work in 'banking' or become a 'spammer'! :laughs:

But it's nice that you like the site and the company of the people here...

Hi caveman. I thougt that was quite a funny post - really made me chuckle.

Personally, I am glued to my laptop for 3-6 hours a day for work so I use it as a little light relief in between the boring drudgery of being an IT consultant stuck at her desk. I go in fits and starts though. I suspect you won't see any posts from me in summer but winter is quite dull.....

I too am online, on average, at least 10 hours a day when translating full time. I don't have the companionship of an office environment, with all the associated banter, coffee and tea breaks etc, so I too visit this and other forums as light relief whenever I feel my head is about to explode and (like today) the weather is too awful to venture out for a walk instead. Other days I am not online at all because of outside appointments and I am slowly learning to make Sundays a no-internet zone. So I think you'll see that there are many reasons people are online a lot, living their life on the internet, as you say.

Of course no-one is paid to post, nice idea though :-)

What does it matter?

For my part I also am retired and like CaroleB I can do whatever I please with my time. My connection to the internet is dialup via Teleconomy Internet, It sometimes can take an age to connect via this wonderful Italian technology but it costs no more to be on line for 10 hours than for 10 minutes so quite a lot of the time I don’t disconnect. I may appear to be online but in fact I may well be cooking, gardening, meeting up with real live friends or walking the dogs.

It might have been better having asked the question to wait for the answer before saying

“Are they so sad ……….”

I have got a bit lost here Neilo, perhaps I misunderstood your post, but the thread was started by Caveman not Christiana, or were you just directing the question to her?.
A

I also frequently forget to log off and it may also appear that I am connected when I'm actually doing other things. Once you are on unlimited connecting time you tend to remain on line even when you are not looking at the screen.

I live here - day in - day out - it's a life sentence, but I love my computer because all 3 of my friends and 846 of my enemies are inside it. :bigergrin:

Very few friends, too many enemies.... Mmmmm....Can't you do something about it or you couldn't care less? Anyway, I think that Internet is great. Like a mega library at your disposal. And I have always been a bookworm.

I think it's pretty obvious that I couldn't care less about the enemies - but I'm grateful for the three friends - which is probably three more than some have. Surely worrying about 846 enemies would take far too much of anyones energy. :smile:

Well I'm one of the friends……… but who are the other two???????:laughs:

With 3 friends, 846 enemies, you only have to sort out the camps of the other 6000+ members .........:radar::nah:

The other 6,000+ are my back up names Geo - just in case! :laughs:

[quote=Nielo;104246]Well I'm one of the friends……… but who are the other two???????:laughs:[/quote]

OK, OK, so I lied! Go on, embarrass me, tell everyone. :reallyembarrassed:

We could add this one to the language games, but as we are talking about friends and enemies this Italian proverb is great:

"Gli amici vanno e vengono, i nemici si accumulano"

I collect them like little trinkets Gala - ma per i nemici le leggi si applicano, per gli amici si interpretano. (Giovanni Giolitti)

It takes so much effort to make enemies! Much more than making friends. Fine, Internet gives you that anonimity and shields you against others. But it also allows you to reach other people and make new friends. I am an optimist and perhaps I prefer to look at things through rose-tinted glasses.... But that suits me. And I prefer to favourably interpret laws rather than apply them.

Perhaps you're reading too much into this Gala - or I am. The proverb wasn't mine (obviously) and was nothing more than a reply to the proverb you quoted. Each to their own. :smile: