what, exactly, is “wasted time”? And, how do we know it when we see it?
Well, Western culture has a pretty sturdy set of guidelines about activities that are not, de facto, a waste of time:
- Economic – anything leading to personal financial gain
- Education – anything leading to fulfilling requirements for a diploma, certificate or degree
- Exercise – physical activity for the sake of maintaining bodily fitness (this is a relatively recent addition to the Western canon of acceptable endeavors)
Activities in either of these two categories (let’s call them “productive”) are safe from the charge of wasting time.
I used to worry about wasting time. You only have so much of it, after all.
At some point I realized that nothing you enjoy, nothing you learn from, and nothing that provides you pleasure is a waste of time no matter how trivial it is to others.
In Tom’s post, he’s specifically talking about the Facebook games and such (like Farmville) which is great and a nice diversion from the real world. Is it a waste of time? Well, no. If you’re playing it with friends and building your farm and sharing animals and helping each other out, it’s actually a fun bonding experience and last I checked, bonding with your friends is never a waste of time in any culture.
Of course, Tom does end up concluding, correctly, that “waste of time” is a bit on the subjective side, and we should all be less judgmental about what others spend their time doing, particularly on the internet.
To that, I say absolutely!
(Go read the rest of the post, by the way. It’s interesting how he comes to that conclusion).