Life Without Internet
Two days ago we emerged from an accidental banishment from civilization as you know it. Two weeks with no internet, no streaming services from Prime or Netflix, no emails, virtually cut off from the Outside World, an electronic Black Hole where no messages came in and none went out, truly a dystopian glimpse into a dark future, post-apocalyptic. Sure, it was a nightmare, a stark reminder of life without constant bombardment of newsfeeds, sports scores, crummy movies, Epstein files, kitty videos, advertisements for new pharmaceuticals and unwanted spam. Okay, a nightmare the first day or so, but … once the withdrawal symptoms settled down and the methadone of walks on the beach or time spent with a banjo in my hands supplanted the previous addiction, ya know, time slowed down, books got read, the doomscrolling stopped and life seemed a tad more, for want of a better, if cliched, word, Real.
Try to imagine life before TV. Life before radio. Life before electricity even, which we also lost for four days after the windstorm blew out phones and internet and power. No podcasts, no Instagram, no Facebook, no Netflix bingeing, none of the usual stimuli that we amuse ourselves to avoid boredom. Just the bare minimum of entertainments. Hobbies, dinners with friends, walks in the woods, playing music. I know, why go on living?
If you want to fall into dangerous nostalgia, lose the internet for a few days. It wasn’t so long ago, really, before home computers, cellphones, I-pads and a plethora of electronic digital devices crowded out our old routines and replaced them with constant clickbait. Time-saving, we all thought when these toys arrived, little imagining they would gobble our hours and days. Who has time anymore to read a book? Our concentration wouldn’t allow for much more than a paragraph or two now. The thought for most of us of having a long conversation with our spouse, well, isn’t that why they invented TV?
Most of us wouldn’t want to return to those idyllic days when we had to fill the boredom in our lives with something of our own making. Too damn hard and getting harder by the nano-second. But if the time ever arrives when you too lose your umbilical to the digital world, you might just find that it isn’t the hell you imagine. Look back at your life pre-computer. It wasn’t that hell either….
Tags: Cold Turkey off the Internet, Going Back in Time, Internet Withdrawal