Life after internet

It’s 10 months since I’ve had internet access. Access at home, that is. I can still drive a mile to the seminary building whenever I want free wifi, but that mile is amazingly inconvenient and strikingly effective at paring down my usage.

Prior to these 10 months, I averaged multiple hours per day online (more hours than I’d like to admit, unfortunately); now I regularly go 3-4 days without checking email, and not infrequently manage a whole week without racking up even a full hour of internet usage.

Funny. Internet access used to be classified as a need; now it barely even makes it into the “want” category.

Weird how this works, but disconnecting myself gave me a lot better access to that elusive connectivity that all our technological contraptions are supposed to provide. I mean, I spend a lot more time with real live people now.

Also, though I can’t say I’ve conquered my habit of procrastination yet (still working on it), I have very few of those moments anymore where I glance up from my keyboard and realize I’ve just screensucked for an hour and a half taking 6 Facebook quizzes (“Which Jane Austen character are YOU?”)

True, I had a mild setback last week in Seattle; with DSL in the hotel room, I succumbed to checking email every day and spending too long over several afternoons looking up Thai peanut sauce recipes.

But I’m glad to be back in Michigan now, where “connectivity” is sufficiently inconvenient to preclude much usage.

There is life after internet, and this life might just be better than what went before.