Writer Stephen Elliott describes what it's like:
I was in Gaza when the Israeli soldiers were snatched from their posts. I was in New Orleans three days after Katrina smashed the levees to bits and the city flooded. But of all of my various adventures, people have been most curious about my recent decision to go offline for a month. I bought an old word processor and left my fancy laptop with a friend.
"How will you exist?" my roommate asked. "You'll have no idea what's going on. You won't be able to find anything."
[...]
So what did I do during my month offline? "You must be getting so much done!" was the refrain I heard constantly. That wasn't exactly true, not initially. My first week offline was mostly spent in a state of withdrawal. I suffered from bouts of extreme boredom. I realized I hadn't been bored in years because I'd gotten in the habit of never giving myself the chance.
But slowly I began to find other activities to fill my time. During weeks two and three, I watched the first three seasons of The Wire (something I might have done anyway). I subscribed to the New York Times and spent almost two hours every morning reading it from cover to cover. It was only in the fourth week that things started coming together. I wasn't just breaking the Internet habit, I was breaking the habits I had learned on the Internet: that addiction to continual bursts of small information.
Link: Surviving a Month without Internet (Poets & Writers)
via Maud Newton
I've read Stephen Elliott's book Looking Forward To It, which is about the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, and really enjoyed it.
Recent Comments