Killing Time

Everyone agrees: Internet can be deadly. With its blogs, forums, online news sources, Internet Movie Database, Google, and everything in between, it can consume your life. Who has that kind of time? No one. And yet, we all do it, to greater or lesser degree. Blogs have become our guilty pleasure.

I am okay with blogs. I read a couple of literary ones (Maud Newton’s, for example), the one about Boston (Universal Hub), and I regularly check my friends' blogs. It’s not so bad, really.

My guilty pleasure (and the major killer of time) is online forums. Not that I ever post my own entries or responses, but I get ridiculously addicted to all the drama there. It’s like watching a soap opera.

It all started with Visa Journey. Now, to be fair, forums can be useful. I first consulted Visa Journey as we were preparing Movie Dictator’s green card application, and the forum had a wealth of useful information: from how to fill out forms to the common interview questions. Of course, I became obsessed with it. I checked the forum several times a day. I identified the people who sent their applications at the same time as us, and I watched their posts like a hawk. Was it healthy? No. But it was a stressful time, and monitoring the forum made me feel better.

We were fortunate: It only took us four months (and about a thousand dollars in application fees). We had an interview at the end of October; we were approved; and a couple of weeks later Movie Dictator had his green card. Hooray! Did I stop reading the forum? No.

In my defense, forums are fascinating. I love to observe the dynamics on Visa Journey. Self-righteousness often is the norm. Buttons get pushed. An innocent question can trigger a hurricane of angry responses. People stuck in limbo, people whose applications got approved, people whose marriages didn’t survive – they all keep posting, sometimes years after the fact. The forum is their community, their life, their way of self-expression. Admittedly, I look for drama. Immigrants who come into the country on tourist visas are a frequent source of anger. (How dare they?!) The brides from Philippines and Russia are commonly seen as suspicious. And then there are so called trolls who just like to provoke their fellow posters. On an anonymous forum like this, people feel free to reveal all of their prejudice and baggage.

Lately, I’ve moved away from Visa Journey. My newest addiction is the discussion board on the Chronicle of Higher Education, particularly the discussions related to the job search. Why? you might ask. And believe me, I ask myself the very same thing. I’ve got the job now. Why do I care so much? I don’t know.

Compared to Visa Journeys, this forum is more subdued, more civilized. In addition to the job search discussions, it offers discussions of money, teaching, and balancing teaching and life. Some topics are frivolous, i.e., vacations, flings, etc; others a quite serious. There’s a huge discussion on procrastination, where people seem to post their to-do lists every day, which they then update hourly. Welcome to the academic life!

Still, my plan is to wean myself off the academic forum. There might be some important/useful stuff in there, and maybe I can check it once a week or something. But right now, it renders me completely unproductive. Last week was a waste. This week is better. I guess this post is my way of “exorcising” the remaining demons.” No more killing time! I say. Until, of course, I find another forum that is relevant.