Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Living Without Internet At-Home Access?
An anonymous reader writes "I've decided that the internet is no longer a positive influence on my life, and am interested in canceling my service. In the interest of not forgoing all digital conveniences, I plan to set up a small intranet, hosting a few resources that I think I'd like to have access to on a regular basis (e.g. a text dump of Wikipedia). I'll also still have access to the internet at my office, and have easy access to public Wi-Fi at libraries and coffee shops. My questions are thus: Does anybody have any experience living without the internet? What major nuisances did you encounter? What resources should I put on my intranet? Is there anything I'm overlooking?"
I think the best thing to do is simply try it for a while. This is as easy as unplugging the physical connection to your ISP. Deal with issues as the come up.
I don't fear computers, I fear the lack of them. -I. Asimov
[quote] Does anybody have any experience living without the internet? [/quote]
Is the *internet* really the best place to ask this question?
"To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
Exactly. The first step if you want to prepare for living without an internet: Learn to figure out this sort of stuff without asking about it online.
Besides, it's not the internet that is your problem. The problem isn't your ability to read news, do banking, etc. online but that you waste your time by doing things you shouldn't do. Canceling your internet as a time management method is like realizing that you drove drunk last night and deciding that your problem is the car ownership. If you can't channel your time to something more productive even after realizing the problem, you have a lot bigger issues than the time wasting itself.
You want to go off the Internet, so your first instinct for advice is to POST TO SLASHDOT?
A) You've come to the wrong place.
B) You'll never make it anyway.
Does anybody have any experience living without the internet?
Yes, but those people can't see your post to Slashdot.
Canceling your internet as a time management method is like realizing that you drove drunk last night and deciding that your problem is the car ownership.
Is that not a valid way of dealing with the problem? If you know you can't control your drinking, this seems like an effective way of mitigating the damage it causes.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I gave up television for a few years (completely, that is no netflix or anything else), and honestly it's like pushing air around a balloon. The truth is that you only have a finite amount of productive time, and when that time is spent your not going to be able to mentally handle anything too deep. Whether it's reading book, internet, tv, going to bar or whatever - it's not going to feel like you've accomplished anything meaningful.. If you want to reclaim your better productive self cut your hours at work instead.
Those of us born before 1985 or so can remember we LIVED WITHOUT INTERNET. We got by just fine. We went to libraries and subscribed to periodicals and bought books for information. We wrote letters on paper, used stamps, and waited days for mail turnaround. We read National Geographic for education and other activities. We survived, we liked it, we didn't notice much missing.
No 'net?
Been there.
Done that.
Was nice.
Don't wanna go back.
Pity the person who does.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Is that not a valid way of dealing with the problem? If you know you can't control your drinking, this seems like an effective way of mitigating the damage it causes.
I think it's a good start. Perhaps learning how to have better influences in your life involves cutting off the bad ones and learning new habits. It's certainly possible that you'll find other bad habits that waste time (TV, drinking, etc.). But why not try it?
I think the best advice I could give someone is to build an offline library. An offline copy of wikipedia isn't a bad idea. But I'd also concentrate on actual paper books. Take the money you'd spend on an ISP and put it towards books, or magazine subscriptions. I'd also look towards what positive things you can do to replace "the internet". Removing one thing you think is bad isn't going to promote positive change in and of itself.
The people here chiming in about "oh noes, how will you live!" are deluding themselves. It won't be easy, but personally I think it'll be enlightening. Cutting off what you think might be a bad influence on your life can only tell you something about yourself. Maybe it'll tell you that the internet wasn't such a bad influence after all. Maybe it'll change you for the good. Maybe it'll tell you that "the internet" isn't your problem. Maybe you're absolutely right, and the internet was the bad influence in the first place. All of those are good things to learn, but you can't learn them until you do it. Good luck.
AccountKiller
Which shouldn't be a reason to get rid of the internet. It should be a reason to go get laid so you stop obsessing about it. A) Get a hooker. OR B) screw your wife/girlfriend. If shes not willing, see A). OR C) Go out and find a girlfriend. If you can't get one see A).
Best: D) get a girlfriend / wife / hooker who actually likes sex and likes watching porn.
You seem to know an awful lot about this person. Maybe wasting time isn't the issue--all we get is "I've decided that the internet is no longer a positive influence on my life". I would say their writing style suggests they posses discipline rather than lack it. They included four clear and mostly specific questions. They wrote carefully and included non-standard but descriptive words (eg. forgoing; thus; nuisances). Time wasting is somewhat low on my list of probable reasons this person wants to get rid of their home internet.
Some other explanations that come to mind (not necessarily in any order): they're sick of wading through garbage online; they want to save money (low probability); they got burned by participating in some online community (high probability; fits the sentence I quoted and perhaps the discipline I noted); they have some internet-related non-time-wasting addiction (eg. porn; gambling).
In any case, people are usually more complex than the first thing that pops into your mind. I often don't like coders because they're such a poor judge of people. They're used to telling computers exactly what to do and being exactly right about cause and effect in that arena. Then they transfer those reactions to real life and act like idiots because of it. Mathematicians do the same thing, though maybe a bit less often (per capita).