We moms all know about the dangers of the internet, and we all have various safety programs in place for our children. But there’s another, more insidious danger involved with the internet: wasting our lives on it.
Yes, there’s a lot to learn out there, a lot to keep up with, and a lot to do. And a lot of it is good. But too much internet time does not work for us.
You see, after being without internet for a while, our family has learned that many other good—or even better—things can be pushed aside by online time.
Reading, walking, learning, preserving, baking, playing with dolls, crafting, watching nature, doing schoolwork, hanging out with each other, making music, playing with the dogs, exploring, and even reading the Bible and praying are all threatened by too much internet time.
This is not good. In fact it is wrong to waste the time God has given us to use for him.
So here is what we’re doing to control our internet time:
- We are planning to make one day of the week totally internet free. It is, apparently, possible to set this up right at the router.
- Other years we’ve allowed internet research at any time of the school day; now we will limit it to later in the day, once the other school work is finished.
- Miss 13 and I blog and Mr. 16 is working on a new web site. These are good things to do, and we’re all learning as well as (hopefully) contributing to other people’s lives…but it’s so easy to let these projects expand to fill more time than they should. We need to determine how much time we can responsibly spend on them.
- While we do not surf much for relaxation, it is possible to waste hours doing so. We need to become more intentional about the down-time we spend at the computer.
Here I can see a new use for the little dollar store timers we have. We can set them to remind ourselves when we should stop and move on to another activity. In fact, I have one sitting beside the computer right now.
Do you have any ideas or resources that could help us to become better stewards of our online time?
For other thoughts about living wisely and well, see Works For Me Wednesday and Women Living Well Wednesdays.
I think this is very wise and I can’t think of any more tips. It appears that you are totally aware of the biggest one, setting limits.
Yes, and it’s hard to do, isn’t it? Sigh!
Setting limits is important. It’s easy to check your email “one more time” or just read “one more blog”.
I really like the idea of keeping surfing to a specific time of day, that way the minutes don’t pile up over the day.
I used to try to limit my computer time to before breakfast, but now we’re having breakfast earlier…. I’ll need to find a new time that works.
Some good advice and ideas!
That is so very true. DD recently set up a facebook account so she can connect more with her youth group. Now that I’ve looked at facebook, for myself, I see it as nothing more than a HUGE waste of my time. It’s not like blogging, where one may actually have something of value to share that will help and inspire others.
And now that dd has facebook, she is on the computer a lot more than she was previously. While that is good in the sense that it keeps me away from the computer, and has helped dh and I to have more time together, it puts HER on the computer more, causing her not to be working out on the Wii, working on her bedroom, or doing something else which would be much more productive.