I've posted a few times about living in DC, but I'm visiting family in California right now, and without planning, I just totally cut out my usual net activities. I decided to just hit up as much of the state as I can. I spent some time in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, I'm heading up to Arcata in a few weeks, and I'll probably get ot San Simeon, Half Moon Bay, and possibly Portlan, Oregon while I can. I have a bunch of messages on here I should reply to (apologies to you all; I will respond to everything in the next few days), probably quite a bit on facebook, and who knows where else, and the interesting thing is I feel negligent of who I am. These feel like responsibilities that I have and hold dear enough to be part of. It's strange because, even in our day and age, I have friends who have nearly no net presence, and I just don't rememver ever doing that. How were Hubski's results from being away from the digital age for a prolonged period?
I think the longest I've gone is about a month, also while travelling. I don't notice the absence of the internet so much after a few days, kind of like taking a break from or attempting to quit smoking. What generally gets to me more is the absence of a phone. Also, I used to take photos fairly often, especially while travelling, but after my camera got stolen I never bothered to get another one. It would be nice to have photos of some things I've seen, but honestly I kind of prefer my own notes or memories of things, or rediscovering shared events by talking with whoever I was on the trip with. I think the thing about photos occurred to me in relation to the original question is that pictures, taken from one's own perspective generally beg one to ask the question, "where was I?" Unless it's a self-shot, the photographer is generally absent from the moment they're recording. To me, being present in the moment is important and it's something I'm working on. The internet isn't so much a part of that, perhaps because on the internet I'm mostly a consumer of content rather than a creator. One impression I have of my visit to Pompeii was that there were a lot of discarded cigarette packs in the ruins. The sand that composes the streets is kind of a flinty grey, but that day it was raining and the sand was very dark. We were the only tourists there and walking through the ruins of that ancient city, looking at those frozen people and I wondered whose ashes were in my shoes.
The longest break I've had in the last few years was two weeks. It was nice. It really feels like moving between two worlds. One thing that I became more aware of were the people that largely live without it. In some sense, I think our interactions on the net work as a dialog that we can move into and out of. Even when I'm not online, if I have been recently, my thoughts will often wander to my last or next interaction: what I said, what someone said, what I want to say. If I unplug for a few days, that dialog falls silent. I know a few people that consciously unplug from time to time. I believe that it is a healthy thing to do. IMO shifting your perspective from time to time is a healthy thing in general.
IMO shifting your perspective from time to time is a healthy thing in general
| Exactly. People have been taking vacations from life's routines for ever, the Internet is now a part of that. I'd bet there's more routine in our online lives than there is IRL. I also think online/IRL is fast becoming a blurred line.
I honestly want to be one of those people. I envy them in some ways. I have friends with no Facebook, don't comment or post online, don't really use the internet at all except maybe reading google news while at work for a few minutes a day. I would like to get to that point myself. I've gone a month before, like others here, while I was out of the country on vacation for a long period of time. Also, I instated no computer weeks and nights for myself a few years ago. Just nights or weeks where I don't even turn on my computer. I have 3 days a week that are no computer nights currently, and I simply just don't turn it on on those nights. Cuts my internet usage, cuts my video gaming, and generally leads to a few more productive days in my week where I read a lot, play guitar and piano, juggle, or do projects around the home. It's also important to note, that I feel better about what I did that day on these nights. I feel better the following morning and day to. I'm a filthy internet/online addict. I don't Facebook or Twitter or any of that shit, but I come to places like Hubski, or play online games, and read a lot of news.I have friends who have nearly no net presence
I have a friend that has no cell phone. It's wildly unpractical for everyone in his life, but it doesn't seem to bother him the least bit. He has an iPhone, but no cellular service. He can only talk if he has a good wifi connection. I've learned to realize the limitation and we actually communicate via shared voice memos. It's nice, he'll send me an email with a voice memo attached and it will usually be between 4 and 8 minutes in length and it will catch me up on all he's been up to in a way that most conversations over the phone never do.
A spoken letter, or a voice mail. Sending messages like that sounds like a really neat idea and not really something that's currently available (or at least not used much, which is also interesting). More convenient than a letter, but more personal than an email or Facebook message. Am I missing something here? EDIT: Perhaps something for a future version of tin-can...
Actually, cW is my friend that I am referencing and he is working on making an app that will allow this functionality to be more widely accessible. Clive, wildly unpractical may have been a bit hyperbolic :)
That's awesome. Meanwhile I have a personal cell phone and a work phone I have to carry around with me at all times. :(
I have the same set up, work phone/personal phone. I wish my work phone wasn't an old-school blackberry or I wouldn't need the personal phone.
I think the longest, most recent net-break I took was in February for two weeks while my family and I were traveling on the east coast. Ironically, now that I live with my fiance (who I met playing an MMO) I go on the computer a lot less and partake in online gaming a lot less. When we lived apart, we were both on the computer as much as possible, often just so we could be on Skype. Now I don't even turn on my PC some weekends and only check e-mail/facebook/news sites from my tablet every so often.
Paul Miller too a year off from the internet. I don't think he liked it very much. However, I don't know that I would say he spent his time wisely. If you're going to Oregon, it is essential you visit Portland and hike through Forest Park, visit the Rose Garden, and check out the Saturday Market by the river (all events are free).
Yeah, that guy loved it at first, but it pretty much devolved into playing video games, sleeping all day, and watching TV from what he had to say about it.