obsessed with internetMy assistant Jack forwarded me an interesting email today. Sometimes in our newsletters we use pictures of women who are prototypes of the kind you’d like to meet. We find the photos on the Internet along with other photos we use. That’s the beauty of the internet and photo sites, You can find whatever picture you need to make your point.

So this email I got today was from a guy named John B. Gage.

John wrote,

“David,

What can I say about the 3 women’s pictures you used in today’s email. One is Princess Blue Eyes, a well-known porn star. The second photo is one, which is on almost 200 internet sites. The third photo is on a ton of dating sites, including a bunch of Russian dating sites. 0 out of 3 of your pictures was genuine. Not very good record is it David!”

Here’s what’s scary about John B. Gage. He actually knows where all the pictures come from. He actually searched for the pictures. John has so much Internet free time that he’s able to tell me exactly which sites use these pictures.

Pictures that I use to show an example of something. John had so much free time that he knows which sites these are on, and that is what scares me. The Internet is not a substitute world for people to live in. The Internet is a way to communicate with people, and to get some great information. It’s not a substitute world for reality. Yet so many people live on the Internet. There are people out there that have only Internet personalities.

They’re able to write emails or post comments that make them seem larger than life, but in reality these are the people that you walk by would never utter a word to you. Big, larger than life Internet personalities tend to be weaker, smaller personalities in real life.

The Internet’s a world where people can escape, where people can become something that they’re not. You could be just sitting in front of a laptop or a computer, in your basement, or in your house, or in your home office, or on your bed. You could be in your underwear, in your little foot pajamas, yet you can be a bigger, larger-than-life personality.

The problem is the Internet has created this world for people, and these people live only in that world.

I rarely go to web sites. I go to maybe 3 or 4 web sites, and that’s about it. My Internet time is for work and productivity. I don’t enjoy being on the Internet, because it takes away time for me connecting with other people. So I’d like to challenge you today. I’d like you to keep an Internet log. How many hours you spend on the Internet, and what you do on the Internet.

If you go to ESPN, and you’re 15 minutes on that site, write it down. If you’re cruising Facebook and looking at pictures there, write it down. I want you to write down everything you do on the Internet. I want you to look at the Internet hours you put in, the things that you do. Then in the other column keep a note of the amount of time you spend conversing with real human beings out and about.

I promise it’s going to be an eye-opening lesson for you. You’re going to see that your larger than life personality on the Internet doesn’t match the personality you have when you’re out. You’re also going to see that the amount of time that you spend cruising websites, porn, and other things far outnumber the hours you’re spending connecting with real people.

They designed the internet to make our life easier, not to give us a substitute world. I’d like you to spend more time out and about and less time writing stupid emails to people about ridiculous facts nobody really cares about.