As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today
What activities cause you to lose track of time?
I’m pretty sure I’ve written on this one before, but it’s one of those topics that always warrants revisiting.
Social Media: The ultimate time-suck
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but in the last year or so I’ve become a real TikTok junkie. No, I don’t make videos of myself lip-syncing,or dancing or eating Tide pods or whatever the young’uns are doing these days.
But I will find myself watching some informational videos or even some of the self-professed “independent journalists“. I say that with sarcasm, but the truth is some of these independent journalist on social media have really picked up. A lot of slack or mainstream media is simply not reporting things going on. I don’t know if that’s more of a symptom of the current presidential administration or just from a lack of interest in certain news stories. But I always remember that when I was teaching in South Carolina, I have a coworker who is from Australia. She would tell me how her family back in Australia knew more about what was happening in the United States and she did.
A casual sports fan with a baseball problem 
I’ve written time again about how much I love baseball. Granted, this is probably more of a seasonal time waster than anything else. The problem is baseball season starts in late March and usually runs till Halloween or even the first week of November. But I do love the game. So maybe in that sense I can’t think of it as a waste of time.
But the truth is, I’ll turn a baseball game on even if it’s not the Tigers, just for some white noise. Even as I’m writing this prompt, I’m watching a Dodgers/Giants game from the West Coast. I’m not really invested in either of these teams. This is a National League game for that matter. But I have it on because I like knowing that the game is there. Three months from now, I would kill to watch these two teams play each other. As it stands, I’ll probably be watching plenty of the MLB Pluto TV channel this off-season.
Looking down the AI Rabbit Hole
I’m a little embarrassed to admit this one, but I’m sure some of you who have been reading this blog for the last few weeks I’ve noticed that I’m gradually starting to use more AI rendered art on this page.
I’ve always sworn I would never get into AI. To be honest, the AI art is about as far as I’ve really gotten into it myself I have had ChatGPT write me two letters before: one as a general quote welcome back to school”; the other being a letter of recommendation I had to write for a coworker.
But I get the allure of AI. It does stuff for you. And isn’t that the whole purpose of technology, to improve our lives? But now I’m even starting to see where some people are creating AI date apps. Not dating apps, but date apps where it will basically be your AI girlfriend or boyfriend. That kind of stuff I feel like it is really launching into the territory of that movie Her. My problem with that would be the same problem that I have with social media general: some people are depending too much on technology to take the place of real human interaction.
Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:
- Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
- Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
- The Muscle of Empathy
- Where Do We Go From Here? Five Years Since January 6.
- Bugs, Boundaries, and the Art of Not Being Invisible
AI art created with ChatGPT
The article “Time-sucks“ first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.
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