Disconnect

We’ve had interruptions to our Internet connections for the past week or so, as I mentioned before. Today, I had no connection at all and it was—weird.

I think that I check Internet “stuff” (email, websites, social media) far too much, so, if I’m right, not having access to any of that should make me more productive, right? No. Not at all. More like the opposite.

I found myself feeling disconnected, not just in the literal sense, but also like I was standing outside my normal life. In fact, I suppose I was. Part of it was that I was disconnected without my consent, while on a normal day I can choose to walk away. Today, I had no choice.

I got things done today, some things beyond what I would normally get done on a Friday, and yet overall it was less than I would have done if I’d had access to the Internet. I think this is a really strange thing.

We humans come to rely on all the technology we create; what starts out as novel, and possibly irrelevant, eventually becomes so intertwined with our lives that we can’t imagine life without it. In fact, we sometimes don’t know what to do when the technology is gone. Today was that sort of day for me.

The closest thing I can compare it to is a power failure: The power goes out very rarely, but when it does, I always end up having to stop myself from time to time because what I was about to do requires electricity. That’s kind of what it was like for me today.

Our Internet will get back to normal, and so will life. But I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t choose to disconnect from time to time—my choice, of course. Maybe I’m too comfortable with modern technology and ought to step back a bit, maybe harken back to a time before the Internet was ubiquitous.

That won’t happen. Once everything is back to normal, I’ll almost certainly forget the weird disconnect between what life was and what I felt it should be. We humans are good at compartmentalising, too.

Right now, I’m mainly just thinking about having Internet access to post this…