Living without the internet
For almost a month, I have been living an internet-less life at home. That’s not fully true - I still have data on my phone so I can check the news, emails etc. But the kind of mindless internet clicking around has been (mostly) absent from my life and I gotta say, it’s been great.
I stupidly cancelled my internet on the Friday of a bank holiday because the customer service had gotten so comically bad. If someone wanted to re-make Fawlty Towers but set it in the myopic world of Vodafone Customer Care, I’d watch. Well, maybe I wouldn’t watch, but it’d be entertaining in the same way that Fawlty Towers was entertaining. The same nasal singer-songwriter hold music, the “I’m very sorry but”, the “we’re currently experiencing high call volumes”, the way my frustration levels increased with each call (there were 7! No, 8 including the one where I cancelled). At one point, I asked the nice but couldn’t help me customer care person if they were interested in keeping me as a customer. He didn’t answer.
Anyway I left, I ordered new internet right away and began the waiting game for installation. In the meantime, I’d plenty of offline work to do - writing to transcribe, fresh drafts to prepare.
The first delay happened when some guy was supposed to come out and dig a hole. As I wasn’t home to sign the consent form, he put it through my letter box and went about his day. By the time he arrived, dug his hole and left, more than a week had passed.
With each delay, I was secretly a bit relieved. Like when you get a bad cold and have to stay in bed, I thought of it as a mini respite from mindlessly clicking around the internet’s corridors. I’ve mostly quit social media, but love to go deep on the New Yorker’s homepage. I’ve been known to comfort-watch people cook great-looking dishes I’ll probably never make on YouTube. I do enjoy clicking through all 20 pages of cozy new jumpers.
All of that stopped without the internet and honestly, it was a relief.
I was still in a pretty privileged position though. I went to my girlfriend’s place a few times a week to download podcasts and catch up on news. And I had my data for any “emergencies”.
When Sky eventually arrived, I was relieved. They drilled and hammered and made an enormous mess, but left me with fibre internet that already feels better than what I had before.
I could never manage without reliable internet at home. It is central to too many parts of my life, including my job. But it was nice to have a few weeks without it. It was nice to only be able to watch the handful of things I’ve saved on my laptop. It was nice to inhabit the physical environment of my home more than I do when I’m reading news from all over the world. It was nice to breathe and be and remember what it was like before we were all so connected all the time. And it was nice to have my connection to the world beyond these four walls restored.
I wrote these few paragraphs a few weeks back but held back on publishing them because they felt so smug and incomplete.
In the intervening time period, life has gotten stressful and I've needed the soothing balm of an eyeball-scorching deep scroll.
So I take it back, I need the internet! Don't take it away again!
Recommendations:
“There is no such thing as other people.” A smart piece of advice in an interesting piece about getting older.
A fascinating look at the post 9/11 generation - so much interesting stuff here about how economic recession(s), war(s), climate change, the introduction of a digital tether and now, a pandemic, has influenced this generation’s development.
Hrishikesh Hirway has started a newsletter about cookies and the first one was legitimately funny.
The politics of a sleeveless silhouette.
Inside Andrew Yang’s failed run for Governor of NYC
A farewell to CYG.
The NYT’s 100 best books of the year always makes me wish I'd read more. Added a bunch to my list.
Some hilarious tweets.
