After a month with minimal exposure to the internet, it seems as if I should be able to make some profound observations. And yet, I don’t have any. Maybe this would be different had I denied myself ALL access to the internet. But that’s not what I did.
I still checked email and read news stories. I browsed a couple blogs intermittently, but mostly ignored the comments. I (finally!) started using an RSS feed, which was extremely helpful in terms of deciding which blog posts I wanted to read and when, as well as removing the temptation of wandering into the comments.
Mostly what I denied myself was the time-consuming interactive aspect of the internet. I didn’t comment on blogs and I didn’t “tweet,” nor did I read the comments and tweets of others. For the first few days, I really did feel like something was missing — well, obviously, something was. But once I got used to the different routine, I didn’t miss those things. Maybe because I was too darn busy with other things. In fact, it’s hard to believe it has been a month already. It was a busy eventful month.
Now I’m feeling ambivalent about resuming that interaction. I commented on a blog yesterday and wrote a few tweets, but was surprised that it felt as awkward to do those things now as it did when I was doing them for the very first time. I’m not sure what to make of that. Or whether I want to continue with the effort.*
Certainly, it all would feel comfortable and routine again fairly quickly. I’m adaptable. But I wonder whether I want to engage in the same ways. Or at all. Some people would say, “If it’s fun, do it. If not, stop.” Yeah, well, sometimes it is and other times, not so much. It doesn’t seem clear-cut to me.
What I’m pondering is whether those things are truly important to me and what benefit I derive from them. Are these activities enriching my life or merely distracting me from it? Am I investing time or procrastinating? I don’t know. I have no answers.
Maybe I just need some more quiet time to sort it all out.
KD James 
It’s okay to waffle, so long as you don’t pancake.
Personally, I don’t like to waffle, but that’s because I hate anything that involves an iron.
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Oh god, every time I hear the word pancake used to mean something other than spongy carb-laden food made palatable only by an infusion of blueberries and perhaps a side of bacon, I remember those awful film clips from however many years ago after the earthquake in CA showing the highway overpasses collapsed onto cars. With people in them. [shudder] I had nightmares for a very long time after that.
Suddenly, waffling doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.
Thanks, Merry. Good to know I can always count on you to cheer me up.
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Oh, I remember that quake. And my mother’s friend’s daughter was one of the people caught in the Cypress structure when the quake hit. I was away from home, and all I saw were the horrible pictures of the Marina district burning. The phone lines were all busy.
When I finally got through to family members, everyone was fine. And a little bit tipsy, to tell the truth.
Fact: after an earthquake, no one wants to be indoors for the aftershocks. Plus, you don’t want to operate anything gas-powered until the Utility company has been by to check. Also, the stuff in the frig is going to go bad if you don’t eat/drink it.
Result: After a quake, there are a lot of people out on the street getting to meet their neighbors for the first time and having a barbecue/brew fest.
Irrelevant factoid: #4 brother was out on the freeway when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. He didn’t notice anything at all. Brothers. Go figure.
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The Internet is fabulous for staying informed and in touch; but it does become habit forming. If you were able to walk away and browse only intermittently, you did well.
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