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?"
Stage one, preparation. For this you will need one room which you will not leave. Soothing music. Tomato soup, ten tins of. Mushroom soup, eight tins of, for consumption cold. Ice cream, vanilla, one large tub of. Magnesia, milk of, one bottle. Paracetamol, mouthwash, vitamins. Mineral water, Lucozade, pornography. One mattress. One bucket for urine, one for feces and one for vomitus. One television and one bottle of Valium.
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
Does anybody have any experience living without the internet? Yes
What major nuisances did you encounter? Lack of internet
What resources should I put on my intranet? A router hooked up to your ISP
Is there anything I'm overlooking? The usefulness of the internet
In all seriousness, good luck.
please excuse my apathy
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.
Is Saturday really the right time to be asking on the Web for helpful advise from people who have already foregone the Internet except at work?
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
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.
Speak for yourself! Mine turns on unbidden at night and beams images into my brain. That's the only explanation for the queer thoughts that have been running through my brain of late - shameful things like voting for social progressives.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
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.
And not owning a car leaves you with more cash for tasty, tasty booze. Everybody's happy!
C-x C-s C-x k
Maybe you are happy with your life, and the internet is the only problem, so ignore this advice if that is the case.
However, if you decide you are stuck in a rut, I think you need to get out of your routine and cutting out the internet isn't going to help. If you are able, sell everything you own, pick a spot on the map you've always wanted to go, and get on a plane and see how long you can make it there. It's only until you let go of your comfort zone that you'll be able to change yourself.
That was my path, of course. Maybe yours is getting a teaching degree and moving to New Orleans, or moving to a shithole apartment in the Bronx and writing a novel, or getting a job on a farm collective somewhere in Utah and rediscovering your body's ability to work, or tending bar in a pub down the street instead of your current job.
In any case, if you are stuck in a series of safe routines that aren't providing you happiness, get out there. You only get one shot. Take it.
It's quite obvious your addiction is the major problem. In your post you even already mention your escapes : 'can internet at work' (and on smartphone and at friends and offline at home). Others here tell you, and other others even also say internet can no longer be socially avoided. It's like telephone has been for 100 years, TV for 50 etc.
Now, my advise from here would be addiction control. Yes, the AA will tell alcoholics to entirely quit. Such hardly ever works. Any cigarette smoker will tell you the same. Smoke 1 cigarette after 5 years of quitting, and you'r hooked up again. Also, again, as others point out: internet is an essential part of modern society, and as such even its addiction needs special treatment.
My [patent pending] proposal for most addicts is: Addiction control. Quit the idea of quitting altogether, as a regular thc, ethanol and nicotine user i can guarantuee you such idea is prone to fail. It comes down to some self-discipline and yes, technology makes it easy. It can help you, morally.
Chances are you have a modern router. Find 'parental settings' or something, and set a time clock. Of course, you can overrule it (and from an addictive point of view i even say: feel free so, to do so, at any time you wish). But the netto effect is: If you do nothing (have this self discipline) your internet will be on between 19:00 and 20:00, enough to check your email after cooking, and shuts down after. In the morning dito, have a 30 minute timeframe to fetch that mail or facebook.
On older routers, just plug in such simple 24h wall-clock.
Also, leave pc on, purposely, to rediscover the stuff we could do with computers for 30+ years (about since home computer was invented, around 80's) without ever using internet. Yes, the good old cassette tapes etc, maybe you have nostalgia to that times? [personally, nostalgia, yes. longing back to it, no. how convenient 'just clicking download' is these days]. Going off-topic here, cause my key point was: it's about addiction control:
Make appointments with yourself. Try to keep to them. Do NOT feel guilty when you don't keep to them, just review the appointments you made with yourself.
gl from a junkie.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
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?
George Washington had no internet access -- and now he is dead.
-Erik -- --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
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
Sober up?
C-x C-s C-x k
Hey buddy, why not just ask anybody that's older than say 30, "What did you do before you had internet?" Since internet access from the home isn't that old, i'm sure you can find some things to do and resources to use.
I'm older than 30, and I remember the pre-internet era all too well. Constant crying, and frequent pants-soiling. I couldn't even feed myself.
Then I got my first taste of the Internet when I started college back in '86, and life got so much better!
I've decided that alcohol is no longer a positive influence on my life, and am no longer going to drink continuously. To prepare for this, I am planning to stock a small cellar with wine, beer and some specialty liquor.
I'll still be drinking at work, and can frequent bars and taverns.
My question is thus: does anybody have any experience living without a steady stream of alcohol? What major nuisances did you encounter? What and how much should I put in my cellar? Is there anything I'm overlooking?
I was lucky in a sense... My own family has been extremely supportive by not drinking ever around me. They don't need to, by now I'm very comfortable around people who drink. My in-laws never stopped drinking around me but the general consensus was that they "admired me for sticking to it". I still am convinced that in reality they didn't admire me for it and it was just a way to encourage me, but it's a way to show support.
As for everywhere else, well... That was easy. I got nabbed drunk driving (2.2 promille) and speeding (184km/h on their clock). I got my license revoked for a few months and had to explain myself in court. As this was the first offense (ahem, yeah, first time caught in 15 years would be a more apt way to put it), I got my license revoked for 22 months, but on probation. So, I'm free to drive, but should I get caught again (speeding or drinking) within the next five years, I get the 22 months plus whatever the new offense brings me. So, people get that story as for why I don't drink: "I'm on probation, I can't drink". That generally gets accepted.
That said, I got caught in an alcohol control yesterday, and while I didn't drink anything, I still was extremely stressed.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I don't think that time-wasting is the issue at stake. I think he's actually unemployed and out of money and needs to save his $$$, and canceling his connection seems like the result of a logical conclusion that it's a luxury he could do without.
Hey, if it was me and my choice was Internet access vs. feeding my kids, guess which one is going to win, every time? I'd sure miss them, but we could probably Skype and email each other.
John
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).