Friday, 9 February 2018

"What tabs are open on your browser?"

I don't normally bother to answer such questions. I answer very few questions on FB - okay, I limit my relationships on FB. I like to think I have an actual relationship with the people there. I may not have physically met all of them but they are people I have other and genuine connections with rather than the casual "friends" relationship that so many people seem to believe is actual friendship. They are people I like to think I could, if they were close enough, perhaps at least have "coffee" with one day.
And one of those people asked a question yesterday that caught my interest because there were already a couple of responses and they caught my interest. 
The question was simply the one in the heading, "What tabs are open on your browser?" It gave me an interesting insight into other people's screen habits.
One of them was pretty much what I expected - but it was interesting to see it confirmed. Yes, she is a true academic.  The rest were a mix of social and research tabs - again about what I would expect from fellow writers. 
Mine reflected my work. FB had been there in the background. I had checked in to see if there were any further contributions to a discussion about what a "wine rubber" was. 
At that point I had just checked the site of our state-wide library network to see if I book I had asked them to get was on the way. Yes, that was "work".  
I had three dictionary sites open as I had been trying to sort out a problem with a communication board - yes that was definitely "work". 
There were two newspaper sites there because I had been catching up on reports of a story which had involved me in some work - the reports were not quite what my colleagues on the ground had suggested was going on. 
I had Blogger open at my reading list because I had promised myself to catch up on the things I want to read as opposed to the things I have to read. 
I had my email open. That is always open. Work comes in on one line but I also keep my personal email open as well. There are news feeds on that. 
And I had Twitter open. Twitter is always open too. I use Twitter for work. I had just been talking to three people in a remote and rather dangerous location - and they had been talking with each other as well. Using Twitter like that is valuable. We use "direct messages" rather than clutter up the main feeds.   The messages are still short. 
Yes, I was trying to be "good" and focus on "work". 
But there was a problem with reading about what other people were looking at. It all sounded interesting. 
There was that curious question, "Can you catch Lyme disease from hamsters?"
Can you? I like to know things.

2 comments:

Susan Ramsaran said...

Interesting question. My answer is "hardly any"; but I've got a picture to show you. Can you send me an e-mail address? Susan Upover

Anonymous said...

Mine is open at "hardly any" as well. Must be a thing with priests! I rather like her blog - spent a few minutes looking at it. Where does she get the time? T