I think it does. I mean, for stay-at-home-moms, being online is taking away a lot of family time. This does not even include blogging because going online means doing different tasks which take a lot of time.
Why did I single out the stay-at-home-moms? It is them who foremost want to build a bridge, virtual though it is, to the outside world, whether to read about a topic of interest or to interact with moms going through their same predicament.
What starts as a search for light fixtures would end up signing up with sites, forums, chat rooms, online communities or whatever is being offered in the web that encourages interaction.
Next thing one knows, searching for help about potty training, special education, child-friendly recipes among others would lead to more time being spent online, reading exert advise or online trash.
And when one has read a lot of things and feel s/he has gain some expertise and feels the need to write and say her/his piece, then blogging is not far behind.
And with blogging comes blogging friends who make visits that need to be visited back in return.
With blogging comes memes with participants who join and expect a visit because they have visited (your) blog.
With new blogging friends formed online, meeting them in real life and participating in events is not far behind too.
With new interests, one blog is not enough to write what needs to be written so more blogs are being set-up.
So yes, online time takes a lot of family time away and I am not the only one to observe this.
It is better to shedule time being online when the more important though mundane tasks are done. Mundane tasks meaning washing the dishes or cleaning up the table after a meal 
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Bits and Pieces, home management, Interesting tidbits, My Thoughts, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.