Wasting Time in Front of the Computer

When a geek is at the computer more often than not people write them off as just "goofing off on the computer". I contend that attitude is because most non-geeks use the computer to do just that...goof off. They surf around on the webbertubes, reading news, playing with email, and generally just wasting time.

In my years of support and watching usage patterns of the computer that there are two types of people. Those that just passively absorb content...i.e., wasting time, playing games, etc...and those that produce content. They write blogs. They program applications. They are generally using the computer to express themselves rather than define themselves.

So I take exception to the idea of just wasting time on the computer or goofing off. Sure, we geeks do goof off on the computer sometimes...the difference is that when non-geeks see us goofing off, they really can't tell if it's goofing off or producing content.

And secretly we like it that way.