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Thursday, December 09, 2004
computer use survey
Here's a little computer-use survey:
How often do you check your email?
Almost constantly. If I'm going by doing something else, I'll just do a quick send-and-receive and see what's there. This is very baaad and is a major reason why I don't get enough done around here.
How often do you check your favorite sites (journals, etc)?
I have a list of them that I go through several times a day. Some of them I only check every few days, however, because they don't update as often.
How many folders do you have in your email program?
24, counting the default ones (inbox, outbox, deleted, etc)
How many emails are in your deleted folder?
9724 (I empty it maybe once a week. No, not that often. A few times a month.)
When did you first use the Internet?
In the summer of 1996.
What was the first thing you remember using the Internet to do?
I went online at the library to look up recipes for homemade baby food (and was bewildered when page 20 of an altavista search for baby food recipes had stuff totally unrelated to baby food). I also looked up information about L.M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables books.
When did you first get Internet access at home?
email summer 1996, actual Internet in the fall of 1996.
What do you use the computer for most?
Email and Internet usually. When I have a job (transcription or data entry) the email and stuff falls by the wayside and I use the other programs more.
Are you on any email lists?
I am on about 10. Which is way down from the 30-something I used to be on. Most are fairly inactive but there are a few that put out a hundred or so messages a day.
How often do you update your online journal, if you have one?
Um. It used to be every day. Now it's more like twice or three times a week.
How much time to you spend IMing?
Not much these days. It used to be more. Often I don't even turn Yahoo on.
How many people are in your IM buddy list? How many of those do you chat with on a regular basis?
Um, maybe thirty people on the list. I chat regularly with... two.
What takes up most of the space on your hard drive?
Music.
What was the first computer you remember using? Where was it?
We had a little Atari 800 at home, which was not just a game machine, it also had a keyboard and you could run little BASIC programs in it. I remember we made one that looked like a rocket launching, in ASCII. Mostly, however, it was for games. We got that when I was in third grade, I think -- around 1983 or 1984. Then at school we had first Ataris, which we didn't use much, and then Apple IIs, and we played Oregon Trail and learned how to make basic little databases and do word processing with those. That was in sixth grade, so 1986.
