Im sort on the fence in alot of ways, tv/movies I largly watch on my laptop (well the externel monitor), for a couple of reasons 1) NZ tv is often so far behind (not so bad now). 2) I can get away without a tv, which means I can get away with cheaper smaller room for flatting, 3) I perfer watching alone, for lack of interruptions

Music and books, I prefer physical media (Vinyl). Most of my background music is from my FLAC collection, but listining for enjoyment Vinyl gives me a lot of non-tangible joy (same with books).

I wouldnt mind a kindle (or similar) for reading academic papers and traveling (but I would be pissed having to re-buy books), would be nice for some self-published stuff I like.

For news thou, I largly use my android phone (google reader, app could be better thou) and use the “star” feature for things I want to reply on, if they responce is likely to be long-ish (this for example)

I’m an information junkie and always have been. If I see, read, hear something I need to know every detail. When I was younger I would walk around the library for hours and I would always read magazines at the local stands. In that respect I absolutely *love* the way we have information at our fingertips albeit not necessarily from reliable sources. Downside is we do sit at our desks all day. That’s not really a problem now, but we might be in trouble once the machines rise.

I agree wholeheartedly with this article and I say bring on transhumanism Charles Stross-style!

Listening to music: Used to be something fairly rare for me, as it usually bugged someone or another. Part of the change is that I don’t have lots of other people close by who will be forced to listen to the same thing I do, but I honesly wouldn’t bother if I had to manage my collection during work; thankfully, services like Pandora are about 90% as good as what I’d put together myself, for about 1% of the effort. I call that a win.

Watching a movie: I rarely do that on a computer. But then, I don’t watch lots of movies, either.

Contacting people: Meh. I prefer to meet in person when I want a real conversation. Though my workplace’s backwards-ass, look-up-every-phone-number-every-damn-time policy, resulting from no-one else knowing how to save contacts in Outlook coupled with “shared contacts” being disabled… ugh. Never mind, that’s another story altogether.

Reading the news: It’s nice getting news in bits-and-pieces when I have a few free minutes, rather than having to plan around catching it / buying a paper / etc.

Making music: I have no musical talent whatsoever, so I can’t speak to this one.

Masturbating: Having a wider selection of material is nice, but it also means re-formatting Windows on a regular basis. I mean, nah, I don’t do that. ;)

Overall, the biggest difference is that things like checking news and listening to music can now be interspersed into my daily routine (ie “work”) instead of requiring me to set aside special time just for whatever. Which is generally a good thing.

@ Luke Maciak:
Talking of kindle, I would buy it in an instant if I would get a free ebook with the purchase of paper book. Ebook is convenient, but I still prefer to own something and not just a few bits on amazon server saying I do.

@ Liudvikas:

Me exaggerate? Never! :P

@ Steve:

While true, this is not necessarily a rule. Watching movies or TV shows is something that you can do by yourself or socially with or without the help of modern technology. If I wanted to catch up on Game of Thrones using old fashioned technology I would have to wait for the DVD set, and then at that point I would still probably watch it by myself since everyone else already did.

Conversely technology can also be used to make a solitary activity more social. In the days of Farscape the Scaper message board I used to hang at used to have live chat running during new episodes. So I was able to watch it with few dozen other people from all over.

@ Victoria:

Interestingly enough, I am still a big fan of old fashioned dead-tree books. Why? Because of comfort. I can read a paper book anywhere – in the tub, on the toilet, on the beach, while eating greasy food. A kindle (or any other ebook reader for that matter) is still an electronic device, and I tend to be overly protective of these and shield them from water, sand and/or greasy palms. :P

Plus, like you said – when I buy a paper book I feel like I own it. I can put it on a shelf and be like “check out my books over here”. When I download an e-book – not so much. So given a choice between a paperback and a kindle download I will usually spend the extra few bucks, and wait few days to get the physical object rather than the download.

That said, I do own some e-books a lot of which would have been difficult or expensive to obtain in hard copy. So I don’t think e-books cheapen the experience. I think they complement it quite nicely.

I’ve heard several comments of ‘grass was greener’ type. They all strive to emphasize that people value something more if it was harder to get. That we valued our dingy cassette collections and discs more because of the amount of effort that went into obtaining them. And that they gave us more joy because of that. While I might understand the sentimental value, it all ended and started anew for me with electronic books. When I was a child, it was so hard to get good books in Ukraine. I had to go to the library, make friends with the strict lady librarian (which actually means ‘get her a box of chocolate’ or something alike) and hope that she would notify me of the good new stuff. In late 90s the situation was better but far from perfect – now you could buy books but they were poorly translated and mostly mainstream. When I went online in ’98, the world changed. Now it wasn’t just books: music, TV shows, comics (that still are not available here), anime… Whatever good stuff I find, I tell my friends about it. We still go to see a movie as a small crowd, sometimes 10-15 people. So I don’t feel alone, stranded at my computer desk :)

Progress is awesome. Now if only they would do something great with transportation :)

I love technology, but I also noted that you could end one thing you wrote with “…by myself”. For instance:

Few minutes later I was watching the pilot episode on my phone.

…. by myself.

:)

I just love how you insert your childhood stories from Poland. :D Always completely exaggerated and always fun to read :)