Max in Real Life: Do I Spend Too Much Time Online?

Have you nominated me and my blogging buddies for the Black Weblog Awards yet? You can get all the details and sh*t over here.

Here's what a typical day in the life of max looks like: I wake up, suck down a bottle of water, and head for my laptop. I check out what's going on in the world: Twitter, SingleBlackMale.org, and ThreeWaystoTakeit.com. I shower, deal with my hair, and come back and check the weather online. I get dressed and head for work; tweeting or foursquare'ing my whereabouts along the way.

I get to work around 7:45 am most days. When I get to my desk I hit twitter again, peek at Facebook, and check out the 200+ new posts in my Google Reader while I eat my breakfast; commenting on anything that catches my interest.  Once that's finished it's time for work to begin. I tell other people how to do their work,  while furiously gchatting and tweeting all day long. Then I come home, get on twitter, and fellowship with my e-girls and fight over e-boyfriends until it's time to go to bed. Next day I do it all again.

But in the last two days, three-dimensional circumstances have kept me from spending as much time online as I normally do. The pain of separation from my #1 gchat love yesterday was felt as badly as any other separation I've ever endured. Last weekend I spent more time "talking" to my twitterfriends than I did my real-life friends. And these days my sex life consists of pornographic dreams about Slim Jackson since he changed his profile pic male bloggers.

Is this too much, do you think?

On the one hand, I say no. I'm a lone wolf by nature, and all this e-interaction allows me to have the best of both worlds; solitude and connections with real people. Plus as a blogger it's my responsibility to interact with my readers and get to know them, isn't it? And furthermore, I work in emerging media; it's my job to be au courant with social media...right?

Then on the other hand I wonder if what I'm doing is really just hiding from the world. But no, that's way too maudlin and dramatic. So maybe what it is is that I'm taking the lazy approach to life. An approach that allows me to "experience" things without leaving my apartment or changing out of my pajamas. Is that really such a bad thing?

My bestie would say yes. But then again, she is also known to have spent many a weekend holed up in her bed ordering in her meals and watching Hoarders marathons. So I say let she who is not without anti-social tendencies cast the first stone.

As with all of life's toughest conundrums, I put it to you dear readers. Is there such a thing as spending too much time online or am I just being efficient? Is striking a balance between e-life and real life something you strive for, or something that you don't even think about? Hit me with your perspective in the comments.

And don't forget the nominations for the Black Weblog Awards! Easy instructions are right here.