Virtual vacations

I spend way too much time on Facebook. I spend way too much time on Farmville. I spend way too much time watching TV shows online. I used to spend way too much time playing Super Smash Bros., and before that I spent way too much time on Neopets.

Procrastination is a great thing – it gives us time to read the wall-to-walls of people we haven’t seen in years and to harvest the new red tulips we planted in cyberspace. When I choose not to do the reading for a class until the wee hours of the night, I get to watch the newest “Dexter,” paint my nails and, if I’m feeling particularly narcissistic, maybe even go through tagged photos of myself and un-tag the ones that I think my face looks too long or my arm is too red in.

But what motivates these crazes? Things that we accomplish on the Internet do not carry over to real life – no matter how many Neopoints I ever had, my life outside of this imaginary world was never affected. Yet, I remember spending hours bidding on objects at the Neo-auction (or whatever it was called) and playing Destruct-o-match and Meerca Chase, and never once feeling bothered by the fact that I was not improving my own life, only those of my weird little online alien pets.

I can’t tell you how many times my roommate, Kenzie, has told me to stop wasting my time playing “stupid” Farmville. Just when I was about ready to build a barrier between my desk and hers, she told me about a conversation she’d recently had over Facebook chat. An older family friend had chatted her, proceeding to over-share personal details of her life with Kenzie. She discussed the hard time she was going through and concluded the rant with this: “It’s been hard, but Farmville has really helped me through it. Whenever I farm, I feel relaxed and like there are other people out there going through the same thing I am.” So is that what it’s about? There certainly is something settling about these mindless activities – your mind is free to wander while your hand clicks away. And the best part is, nothing bad happens. Maybe some of your strawberries withered or you ran out of moves in Solitaire, but nothing is unfixable.

When we live through someone else (a family of Sims, an overall-clad avatar, characters from our favorite TV shows, etc.), our own livelihoods are not at stake. If your virtual house burns down while playing Sims, you can build a new one with a few simple clicks and cheats. When the newest “real housewife” of wherever goes broke, who cares? Your money should still be safe and sound in the bank. This is fantastic. In life, we all have enough to worry about. Everyone deserves to take a walk in the drama-filled shoes of Sookie Stackhouse or Blair Waldorf every once in a while without the backlash of any real consequences.

Of course, there’s a limit to how much time should be spent dawdling and Internet surfing – once your grades start dropping or your eyes become permanently bloodshot from staring at the computer screen, take a break. The unrewarding (in the material sense) pleasures of procrastination are not worth failing a test. But while you’re perusing Perez between classes for new celebrity gossip or compulsively checking Yahoo!Sports for every stat you can find, don’t feel guilty. There’s no harm in enjoying some easily accessible and innocuous distractions now and then.

This is the opinion of Katy Rosenberg, a sophomore business major from Mill Valley, Calif. Please send comments to krosenberg@theloyolan.com.