“Not too long ago I was on it all day long,” writes Juan Rodriguez in an essay in the Montreal Gazette, “it” being the Internet. “I felt buzzed and strangely empty.” But when Rodriguez, a freelance writer, moved into a new apartment last year, he didn’t bring the Net with him:
Unhooking myself from the Net started as an experiment, after depending on it for work and recreation for nearly 20 years. If humans are basically creatures of habit, I wanted to know whether I could survive without being addicted to the World Wide Web. According to some friends and colleagues, this draconian act has transformed me into something akin to an antisocial psychopath. And stupid, too, as I am in the newspaper business, which places a premium on being up-to-date.
Rodriguez hasn’t gone entirely off-line. He spends an hour or two a day at an Internet cafe, catching up on email and doing research. But he’s finding that being disconnected most of the time is opening doors that the Net had closed:
Once I eliminated the Internet from my apartment, I rediscovered the joys of reading books (not blogs). It’s a feeling I haven’t experienced this intensely since my adolescence, when I devoured books, like a human sponge with a lust for everything … Not having the Internet at home has done wonders for my self-image – and also played havoc with it. I imagine myself as a teenage rebel again, a non-conformist, Bucking the System … And, somehow, the less I sense my life being “tracked” online, the more secure and independent – free? – I feel, at least for a little while.
“Not too long ago I was on it all day long,” Danny Bloom might have written on his blog in Taiwan, and maybe he even did, google to find out. — “it” being the I
internet, which he lowercases now. Do you CAP radio or television or cinema? No. So lowercase internet now. The Brits are correct. “I felt buzzed and strangely empty.” But when Bloom, a freelance writer in Asian since 1991, moved into a new apartment in 2003, he didn’t bring the Net with him. In fact Bloom does not even own a computer and never has. “I hate owning things,” the neo-Luddite says. “And I have never owned a computer and had one in any of my living quarters since moving to Asia in 1991. Never had one in the USA either. I don’t own a house and I don’t own a car. I hate ownership of things. I do have a cellphone and a red bicycle.”
Very interesting. Please post more of this sort of thing.
Personally I tried going without the internet for a while at home, and couldn’t do it – I was spending my life in starbucks on their wifi!
I’m curious to know whether Rodriguez also gave up his computer? I’m guessing probably not, but I don’t think he clarifies that. I think I would find it much harder to give up my machine than to give up connectivity. Interacting with my PC, even offline, is at times hugely energising and creative, and highly relaxing and soothing on other occasions. That person-machine connection via the keyboard would be extremely difficult to relinquish. Next to it, the loss of streamed information seems almost inconsequential.
I have been listening to your “Shallows” argument and I decided to spend a little more effort to read books. I live across the street from our brand new civic library, they expanded its size immensely, but spent almost nothing on new books. They have a large area of new computer workstations, but the shelves seem bereft of books, especially in their nearly-empty art section. I have a large collection of surplus art books I’ve been thinking of donating, so I talked to the head librarian. They didn’t want them, they said they’d just sell them to raise funds. I never heard of a library that didn’t want books.
But I live in a separate town in the suburbs, and the main city library is wonderful, as is the local University library. So I’ve been going to the main library and checking out a few books. I have about 15 checked out now, I asked the librarian what’s the limit on books I can check out, she said, “oh, I dunno, about 75.” Ha. I better pull back on the number of books, keep it limited, or it could be just like sitting at a computer screen with 15 windows open.
I sit down to read and immediately I am in a different mode because I have a different set of eyeglasses for reading than computing, each set of glasses is incompatible with the other task, I can’t see a damn thing. Visually it is a completely different task. I notice it does take an entirely different kind of effort to read for a prolonged period. But it’s not entirely alien, it seems like the kind of prolonged effort I spend when I’m writing. I spend an hour or two away from the computer, and then I come back and oh hell, I have email and my RSS feeds are clogged with new junk. But I have become less attached to clearing feeds and email as it comes in. And oddly enough, just the act of reading and getting away from the screen helps me get away from the computer generally. I have been doing other projects that my computer has been sucking all the energy away from. And now it’s my choice, I could be sitting at the keyboard, but I am losing my attachment to it.
“I felt buzzed and strangely empty.”
Interesting observation. The ‘buzz’ I take it is sensed in the brain region of our consciousness, the emptiness is perhaps akin to our life force or closer to an emotional tiredness. Both of these I’m sure we have all experienced when we do a task without direction or a goal in mind. Instead of a goal driving us the objects of our immediate focus drive us, leading to no place in particular, perhaps even in endless circles. Our focusing and fascination with the tools and not the job at hand (if in fact there is one) is a track that is going to deaden the intellect of generations if we don’t get past it as a society.
Some lower part of our consciousness thrives on new shiny toys, cars and websites but if these tools provided to us by life are given more of our attention than what they deserve, if they are held up high and worshiped as gods in our life then we miss out on the real nourishment that life offers. That is the nourishment and growth that comes with completing tasks or goals with careful unwavering attention. The path to the completion of a goal is more or less a straight line, the mindless and goalless roaming that we involve ourselves in at best leads back to our starting point. It provides our minds with mountains of data but has done nothing with that data, it creates people who think they are doing things but in fact have done nothing. A little like watching television, which creates in us the illusion that we are doing something when in fact the vision is created for us, we have done nothing of consequence.
I believe there will be more and more testimonies of the disconnected. It’s the new trend worth watching.
Also, I find it interesting how the self-identified “non-Luddites” love to throw around the term “Luddite” with such authority. It almost seems like the collective artificial intelligence of the internet speaking though us. “Don’t be a Luddite, Dave.”
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/2001.html
I grow weary of these self-congratulatory tales of the disconnected. A large majority of reasonably well-paying jobs in the world require employees to be connected for at least 8 hours a day. No doubt we would all like to spend our time cruising the streets, cafes, and bookstores of Montreal, but alas, we have to go back to work.
Kelly,
I honestly don’t think that your comment accurately portrays either the tone or the content of Rodriguez’s essay.
Nick
** Off-topic
Mr. Carr,
I searched all over your site(s) and couldn’t find a contact form.
How can I contact you?
Thanks
Dear Nick
I just sent a complement to InfoDev for starting the debate around ‘The Shallows’ with for the ICT community such controversial viewpoints. As I wrote to Wayan W: It can be very meaningful (quote Wayan:) “for us to all work together to promote holistic ICT implementations in education”.
Mr Carr, Nick, I look forward to your presentation which is so important and can be really influential. For the last three years I travelled and visited the ministries of education and schools in many middle and low income countries. I suggest ICT for developing economies in a most practical manner.
A visit to my blog might be fruitful for you when preparing your contribution to the debate…. see http://visualteach.blogspot.com
Best Jan Krol
I spend at least 13 hours per day connected and I feeling like I’m loosing something.
My brain is not work like used to. I still crative, but is not something free, like it suppost to be.
I believe taking sometine offline would be much better for my health and thoughts.
But I still don’t have the courage for so. This guy, Rodriguez, did something amazing.
Recently, I discover that the FREE WORLD is not in the internet, but in the books. It need to be balanced.
Balance is as much a key to our online lives as it is to any other activity in life. If you spend untold hours zipping around on the net your eyes and brain are going to start buzzing simply due to the effects of the refresh rate of the monitor.
This is not that hard to understand and accept.
Then we have the effects that ultimately come as we waste our time over the days, month and years doing very little other than following link after link until exhaustion sets in.
Unlike some who present this as perhaps a ‘new’ type of learning, I think we are simply indulging our laziness, instead of structed goal orientated reading and learning we are going with whatever link or story etc sings the loudest.
In great moderation this type of activity certainly has a place, for say 5-10 minutes a day it can be healthy. So its a matter of controling our behavior not necessarily doing away with your computer or the internet which can be valuable if used as a tool in the correct way.
Balance is the key, set a plan and stick to it. Find other activities in life that feed your creative needs and do them in place of the other 8 hours you would normally spend on the internet. If you have to work on a computer during the day then that is another story, you have to do what you have to do to earn a living. But at least practice some restraint during your own time and you will find that life will start to become vibrant again, you will begin to feel like talking and socializing with people again.
Nick: My point was that there are still vast amounts of people who do not have easy access (or access at all) to the internet. This puts them at a tremendous disadvantage, as you make clear in your book. Having a conversation about setting aside time each day to unplug is one thing, but it bothers me when folks rave about the luxury of being totally disconnected, especially when they’re not totally disconnected.
I am in the midst of reading The Shallows and I wonder what, if any, connection would be made by this book and the writings of Neil Postman. I have a sense, and I am still mulling this germinal idea through,that the impact of the Net on our ability to achieve deep understanding is similar to what Postman suggests in writings like “Amusing Ourselves To Death’. Thoughts anyone?
I’ve read your blog for awhile, and last year, I decided to not go for unlimited broadband. 1) was because the accommodation I was living in did not provide internet and 2) broadband was too expensive for me as a student.
so I started using pay-as-you-go, surviving on 1 gb of internet for a month. The credit got used up quickly, and I used the internet very very sparingly. Not for facebook or for listening to music or watching youtube but only to check university email, do a bit of research, look up stuff.
I also cut down on a lot of things. For example I decided not to allow people to leave comments on my blog anymore as I felt that I could do without the distraction. I turned off facebook notifications and used it as little as possible.
I visited libraries more. Borrowed books more.
I tried, I really tried, to be more engaged in reading books, and not clicking on multiple links online. But I couldn’t. It felt very dead to me. I felt very guilty whenever I would start a book and fail to finish it.
Now, one year later, I’m living in my own flat, not university accomodation, and with unlimited broadband. I realised how silly I was to assume that not having the internet 24/7 would provide a better quality of life for me. I was wrong. People use facebook to organise social gatherings, to network. They post on advertising sites for interest groups to meet up and get together. I missed out on so much not being able to check the internet whenever I want. With the internet I found out about a lot of things I could do in the real world. As a result my life seemed more productive, unlike last year where I strenuously tried to avoid going online on facebook, gmail, msn, on music and movie streaming sites.
Yes I know to sit at a computer for 4 hours each day is not even healthy and can be tiring. But the fact is the internet helps me to get out more, and even think more about different things. I like the stimulation. I couldn’t live without it.
I don’t see why its so bad if using google is changing the way we think. Sure we are more distracted. But doesn’t it make us more creative? Some people argue the invention of writing made humanity stupid because we are losing out on remembering things. Like the greek poets used to pass on storied by oral tradition. But isn’t that boring? Why should we think ‘linearly’ anymore?
Regards,
Jacqueline