going offline (mostly)

[IDEM]

On 10/19/2015 at 5:27 PM, joshuatxuk said:

Has anyone here simply quit the internet? Or at least gone so cold turkey that you only and check email and a handful of other quick, pragmatic things.

 

I've been less and less active on FB and twitter but I still find myself farting around on reddit or some other topical site asking myself "why am I sitting here wasting time?" or feeling like I'm superficially projecting my artistic interests and leanings by just browsing other peoples (oft recycled or re-posted) art and culture.

 

The other factor is pure nostalgia / reflection on my personal past and society's past. I miss the more detached time I had offline or by myself. I'm kind of a holdout - hell I didn't even have a smartphone until late last year. Sometimes I just like to sit and think, or listen to music or watch a movie without feeling like I have to broadcast it to the world. I like driving sometimes so I can do this. But the pondering thing especially, I really miss doing that as often I used to. I really don't like people who are the opposite. Louis CK touches on it here.

 

...or maybe I just miss web 1.0 internet - back when you would have a 1 on 1 interaction with the internet or people via chat. I feel like instead of making my own little substantive online presence and music and art I dick around via comments and sharing existing stuff. I used to get more obsessed and passionate about certain music and art that way than I do now, or at least I felt I did, than simply clicking around now. Hell that's how I found WATMM after all.

 

Anyway, just curious if anyone has had the same dilemma.

Hey OP (and everyone else really), how have your internet habits changed over the last five years? Has your internet use increased?

Mine certainly has. I'm not even online that much, I don't do social media and pretty much only visit one or two Lego blogs, two or three electronic music sites, including this one and Head-Fi on a regular basis. (The last two out of completely opposite reasons btw -- with Head-Fi it's the incredible stupidity of the site as a whole and basically everyone who's posting there that keeps sucking me in, while with WATMM it's quite the contrary -- you're welcome everyone.) And yet it still bothers me sometimes, because I feel my attention span is definitely shortening. It doesn't affect my work, because I'm able to keep focused while working, but double screening has become increasingly common after hours, to the point where I will often pick up my phone after half a movie and just start browsing. (Actually I'm not entirely sure if it's because most movies and TV shows just aren't as engaging or as interesting to me as they used to be or if it's my attention span.) It annoys me a bit because I'm generally suspicious people who are constantly online and can't focus on anything. I also used to be quite a reader (of actual books I mean), but my screen time is definitely increasing, and I'm often too tired to read something demanding in the evenings, so it just feels easier to have the TV on in the background and scrolling through some dank memes online. I know that this is pretty much normal behavior for anyone under (and maybe even over) 50 these days, but I still hate it to be constantly distracted. I've long held out on this lifestyle (I'm one of those late cell phone adopters) and still don't fully subscribe to it, but I guess I can't pride myself anymore on being one of the last insurgents. 

So anyway, this thread resonated with me, and I'm curious to hear about others' experiences. Has anyone actually been offline for an extended period? And if yes, how was it, and what prompted you to return?