Amount of personal Internet usage

[Kevin C. Tofel]

I realized over the past few days that my "on line" hours have been steadily increasing as I find more and more interesting sites, get more e-mails and listen to streaming internet radio. It got me thinking about what I'm NOT doing with that time, but that's another issue :wink:

As broadband continues to gain a foothold and wireless technology rates also rising, I'd be curious how many hours per week you estimate as "on-line time". Let's keep it to non-work because you might be researching something for a work project, which I wouldn't count. My personal estimate:

Weekdays
2-3 hours per day for surfing & e-mail
3 hours per week IM'ing on my PPC

Weekends
4-5 hours every Sunday for NASCAR TrackPass
2 hours on Sunday for streaming NewAge music while reading the paper
1 hour per day for e-mail
3 hours per day for general surfing (most of it here!)

Total Estimate: 30 Hours per week 8O

What's really interesting to me is that 5 scant years ago, I probably spent 10 hours per week on-line via dial up (anyone remember AOL 2.0???) to get the same amount of content I can get in less than an hour on DSL......now at 30 hours of broadband per week, how much content am I saturating my brain with??? :robot:

[arnage2]

now that im on disability, im online 42 hours or more per week on wireless 802.11g connected to 3mbps cable internet.

[c38b2]

I calculated 5.5 hours during weekdays and 8 hours on the weekends, and this equals 43.5 hours per week. Wow - I never knew how much time I spent online until I tallied it up just now. 8O
anyone remember AOL 2.0???
I started out on AOL 3.0... they offered a whopping 15 hours free! :lol:

[jake080]

... sigh... its bad, in the too much sorta way :P

[Jon Westfall]

Anyone remember CompuServe 2.0??? We really need a "How long have you been on the net" quiz of some sort. Questions like "Do you remember a time before pop-up ads?" "Do you know why Netscape accused Microsoft of Anti-Trust" "Do you even know who Netscape was?", etc...

[Kati Compton]

A lot of my work involves using the internet.

I'm "on" all day at work, and a good part of the rest of my waking hours at home (broadband). I'm not always actively using it, though.

[Janak Parekh]

Anyone remember CompuServe 2.0???
CompuServe 2.0??? How about pre-CompuServe 2.0? Back in the Commodore 64 days? ;) I've been online for a long time, although it used to be a huge rip-off back when: $12.50/hr for 1200bps communication over phone lines.

Now I'm probably online about 12-15 hours a day, every day. Like Kati, I use the Internet extremely heavily for work, and as such I really can't distinguish one from the other.

--janak

[Kacey Green]

These poll questions cover all the bases my only complaint is 0 hours can be intrepreted as everthing under 1hr or a literal 0.00 hours. I never thought about how much time I spend online before.

[MacBriar]

Scary but I think I fit into the 30-40 hours bracket. I spend about 2 hours in total online during the work day for research, uploading sites etc. and about 2-3 hours online at home every day.

[Kowalski]

not more than 2 hours a day. i got other things to do

[Kati Compton]

These poll questions cover all the bases my only complaint is 0 hours can be intrepreted as everthing under 1hr or a literal 0.00 hours. I never thought about how much time I spend online before.
Well, if someone is online 0.00 hours, they won't be able to answer the poll, will they? But then again, they won't be *reading* the poll, so they won't feel left out.

[Kacey Green]

These poll questions cover all the bases my only complaint is 0 hours can be intrepreted as everthing under 1hr or a literal 0.00 hours. I never thought about how much time I spend online before.
Well, if someone is online 0.00 hours, they won't be able to answer the poll, will they? But then again, they won't be *reading* the poll, so they won't feel left out. :lol:

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Although we don't have a ton of replies, I find it interesting how many hours folks are using the internet as a "medium". It used to be: "The average American watches x # of hours of TV"......will this change to reflect web usage???

It's really become another "utility" in my mind: phone, TV, electric, internet, etc.....

KCT

[OSUKid7]

I can't even imagine not being online. Seeing as I go to school, I prolly spend about 4 hours online every weekday, and close to 7 on the weekends. That's still only 34 hours.

Weird thing is, no one in my family is really into computers. I talked my dad into getting one when I was in second grade, and we finally got AOL 3.0 in 1997. Now I can't imaging going more than a few hours without being online...what a life. ;)

[dh]

Although we don't have a ton of replies, I find it interesting how many hours folks are using the internet as a "medium". It used to be: "The average American watches x # of hours of TV"......will this change to reflect web usage???

It's really become another "utility" in my mind: phone, TV, electric, internet, etc.....

KCT
I think you are right and it is happening already.
Right now for example, I'm here using my Thinkpad, my daughter is using AIM on out Mac and I'm listening to Mets vs Giants over Vision on my phone.

Who needs TV? :D

[Mitch D]

I had to sit back and think before I answered, like so many in the computer industry (I work retail) I spend alot of time researching product, on line training, newsletters, forums, IT news sites, PocketPC sites, etc. I spend to dang much time on line during the day, but I choose this type of work and looking for new toys doesn't help...