The IM Experiment: Day One

As you probably know, instant messaging is my primary form of communication.  Being homeschooled, I don’t get to see my friends every day.  I also only see my friends at church once a week, since we don’t hold Wednesday night activities.  So Internet communication has been a blessing in that regard.  However, I don’t care to email people because I desire conversation.  Writing on Facebook walls has more of a conversational feel, but it’s a very slow conversation.  So I prefer to use IM services to “talk” to my friends.  Although it too has its limitations, I think it’s the best the internet has to offer in communication.

However, instant messaging is also very addicting for me.  I find that nearly every night, I’m either chatting with friends, or just sitting there waiting for someone to get online.  Although our conversations can be beneficial, I find that I waste a lot of time that could be better spent by reading or writing or pursuing music.  Even worse is that my schoolwork and family relationships have suffered this past year due to such.  But the biggest problem is that my relationship with God has not progressed the way that it should, since I don’t frequently dedicated time to studying and meditating on the scriptures.

Last week was different though.  For reasons that God alone knows, I stayed dedicated to my work, and was very productive every day.  I spent a minimal amount of time on IM, and had more time to devote to more important things.  While keeping in touch with people through Facebook, I finished most of my work for the week, and even took the time to go look for a job.

So this week, I’m going launch my IM experiment.  My hypothesis is as follows:

When instant messaging activities decrease, substantial and important activities will increase.

I’ll try to follow up each day or two on the progress of the experiment.  I don’t have it in my official hypothesis, but I also expect other computer-related activities to increase as well, though not to the same level as IM.  This proved true today.  I spent a portion of my evening on Facebook, which was a lot more interesting than normal.  Since almost everyone reading this is my friend on Facebook though, you can probably just go to my profile to see some of the details.  Important activities this evening included two tests, math and Spanish, both of which went well.  I’m doing writing practice right now.  I’m going to read a few chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird and the Bible before I go to bed.  So tonight will end more productive than usual.

Instant messaging is a tool.  Like any tool, it is not inherently evil.  But people, like me, often use it for such, being inherently evil.  So the success of this experiment will require God’s help.  I tried giving up all computers for a week on my own strength before.  I failed.  But in my failure, I cried to God for help, and I succeeded on my second try, through his power.  So this week, and always, I need to remember that I can only rely on God alone for the ability to do what is good.

[Note:  Because the purpose of this blog is merely for me to write, the preceeding post was published with little to no editing.  I am capable of writing better than this, but since good writing isn't my point, I didn't bother to do so.  But this did end up being a lot better and longer than Twitter quality, which I totally didn't expect.]

[Another note:  I'm going to mess around with the visual theme for my blog some more.  I'd prefer for it to show the post titles.]

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