The following are stats derived from using RescueTime.

After tracking my media habits for the past week, what I found most striking is not the media that I consumed by what I didn’t consume. This is most striking in terms of format – almost no media was in formats that existed before the web. The one exception, was NPR which I listened to for 10 minutes on a car radio. The books, I read were in PDF format rather than paper. The videos I watched were seen online rather than on a television. If meetings and lectures count as Media they were the one traditional format that took up significant time.

I was surprised how little time was spent on news. I expected Google News to rank higher than it did. I now realize that I would simply glance at Google News a few times a day, never spending more than a few minutes there.

In terms of the Media where I do spend time, Gmail was by far the site I used the most, This was to be expected since I use gmail as a task manager through the ActiveInbox browser add-on. Thus the time spent on gmail includes task management activities in addition to traditional email.

In terms of applications, the gnome-terminal (Linux command shell) was where I spent the most time. During the past week, I spent considerable time accessing remote machines through ssh.

Shopping sites such as amazon.com and slickdeals.net also ranked highly. In the past, deal sites such as Slickdeals.net have been a time consuming and expensive addiction for me. Perhaps, because of my backgrounds in economics and security getting great bargain is immensely satisfying — even if it’s for something I don’t really need. Thus I’m relieved to have spent less than 2 hours shopping there.

Chart of sites:

Chart of categories