OK. I concede that is a reasonable assumption, if you look at say Wendy’s portfolio. But some people can write a novel in practically no time and I don’t believe that someone who never tried serious writing can accurately judge the time, and some fanfic novels take years to produce so on a weekly basis, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that time consuming.
And most people have some leisure activity that consume great parts of their free time, like say golfing.
I don't think employers take the time to think any of this through to this degree - in either a positive or negative direction.
Yvonne makes a good point in relation to this. How many times on the news have you seen a positive story linked to people using the internet? Mostly, it's about the weirdos. Be they fanatical fans of something, cheating students, or child molesters.
And how many times have you seen a documentary or news item (convention coverage, for example, on local TV) about fans that showed them in a positive light? They always focus on the creeps and weird fish - the ones that the rest of us are cringing at.
So it's probably not surprising that most people who don't use the net socially or regularly see it as a negative thing to be involved in and are suspicious of those who do.
Employers with a pool of potential employees aren't going to take the time to deeply explore the reasons why one is spending all their time on the net as a hobby when they have others who don't and are probably - in their eyes at least - a safer bet, more responsible, mature and not so flakey. <g>
If an employer knew how much time it took (and some probably have an idea) they might well be suspicious that some of that time might be coming out of the work day.
This, too, makes a good point. Aside from all of the above, I think what most employers associate the net with is all those stories they've seen on the news about employees getting fired for spending their working day sending risque joke emails to one another or browsing porn sites. Again, they're not going to spend time finding out differently if they're not interested in the first place and there are other potential employees to hire who don't use the net at all. Like most of us they'll take the path of least resistence and take the easiest route to hiring.
LabRat
