Don't diss the Internet

Susan Hill has not written a post for more than a month. Yesterday she wrote on her blog:

"I was internet free, pretty much, for 5 weeks and as a consequence I am going internet-free for good. E-mails, yes, writing this blog, yes, using the scholarly sites for my dissertation, yes. Banking, yes. Otherwise, I`m abandoning the internet for good. Well so far as the eye can see. I have missed nothing.  Not one thing.  And I have wasted sooo much less time."

But how do you know you haven't missed anything if you weren't looking? And how do you know that what you were doing while you weren't looking at the Internet was less "time wasting" than doing something on the Internet?

Putting those points to one side, Susan Hill's definition of being "Internet free" made me smile. What she has decided is that she will practice good time-management by using the Internet for doing things that are useful to her (banking, blogging, etc) and not for things that she does not find useful. She is not "abandoning the Internet for good" (her phrase) any more than somebody can say she is "a little bit pregnant". Once you've experienced the sheer usefulness, let alone the heady joys, of the Internet, I think it would be pretty near impossible to go truly cold turkey.

Comments

[Norm]

Her internet free regime sounds like one of my strict diets. Just some cheese, chips, samosas and butter but otherwise I am dieting. ;o)

[Debra Hamel]

My response exactly! So, apart from e-mail, blog writing, research, and online banking, I swear, I've given it up for good!

[Maxine]

hee hee!

[Henry Gee]

Reminds me of an interview I once read with some aggressively coiffured young blonde executrix who said that she didn't understand those women who complained that they couldn't Have It All, and that you could combine being a home-maker, mother and business-person ... provided you could afford the secretary, gardener, nanny, cook ...

[Dave Lull]

And, of course, a sense of duty to help others maintain or attain humility might make one reluctant to reduce one's time on the Internet:

http://xkcd.com/386/

[Maxine]

That's a good cartoon, Dave, I agree.
And Henry, I wish!

[Susan Balée]

Wow, I'm surprised. I thought she was an inveterate blogger. I haven't ever thought of 'abandoning the Internet,' but when I get busy, as I have this summer, I'm in this virtual neck of the woods much, much less. But how could I abandon all the cool people -- like you Maxine -- that I only know via the Internet? Never! Probably why I will never have a blog of my own, though. That sounds like a responsibility to me rather than a pleasure. My life these days just has too many responsibilities as it is!