Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Examining my screen time

Thanks to the Onion for bringing to light the foolishness of my daily living in this recent report. Just like I need to keep a food diary, I should gauge my screen time, better yet, "glowing rectangle time."

A few time investments in my favor:

1. I'm back into reading. After about a six-week layoff from my reading projects (Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and a sociology of religion book by James Wellman) and a mostly longer layoff from the Bible, I am back to all three.

2. I have too many chores around the house to spend too much time in front of a computer or television--but that could be a problem since we have "bundled" media services, with more channels pumped in to our living room. I admit, I was lured by the opportunity to watch the Mariners on tv and college football in the fall.

3. For my own sanity and my children's health, we are getting in the habit of going to the park and/or pool twice per day. With this pool, our children may think this will be the best summer ever. Too bad we'll have to let them down in the future with our own home--even with a pool pass or neighborhood pool, I don't think we'll ever swim this much again.

4. I have no laptop, and trips between the computer and television involve climbing stairs--at least I get a little exercise.

5. Being a stay at home dad, I didn't see the need to keep a smart phone. That's one less consistently viewed glowing rectangle.

Still, my dear wife and I watched 2 hours of HGTV before we went to bed. We had some fun conversations about our own domestic layout, but the junkfood feeling of 2 hours of television is painful.

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