It’s 6:18 AM on a sunny Saturday morning. My internet connection is down. I know it because the first thing I did after waking up was to check if I had any messages.
The Internet is out for almost 8 hours. I know it because I was scrolling in my bed when I got the message Couldn’t Refresh Feed. No Internet.
Of course I did restart my router. Triple times. I reset it twice, too.
Diagnosis remains the same: No Internet Connection.
I was impatiently sipping my morning coffee and counting the minutes till 8 AM so that I could call the Technical Support Service to report my network issues.
- Thank you for your patience while I was checking the status. We are currently running some system upgrades and, because of that, our service is not available in your area.
- How long do you think it would last? I have been off the internet since last night. - I was putting the emphasis on the last part of the sentence. Since - laaaaast- nighttttt.
- Give me a moment to check, ma’am. Right, the service will be restored as soon as possible.
- Can you, please, specify how long should ‘as soon as possible’ last?
- Yes, ma’am. According to the info I have here, the service should be available within the next 48 hours.
48 hours?! $5§#!~!§$%
Conversation with the operator took an additional couple of minutes. I was not rude but my annoyance was obvious as it soon slipped into serious interrogation worth some decent movie scripts. When I run it now in my head, I see myself acting as a nasty agent in a small room pointing the light into the face of an innocent guy who has been arrested just because he was a messenger.
What do you mean ’48 hours’?
Why didn’t you notify me via message that you plan this serious service interruption?
I have work to do and you are telling me that I will be off the internet till Monday?
I have always been fascinated by the fact of how sometimes a very little is needed to slip out of the stoic balance and sustain from reacting. Especially when you are bragging about something that is out of your control. And definitely out of control of the person whom you are bragging to.
Now I knew it. I knew relatively quickly after I'd been told that service was down. Still – I overreacted. Why?
Because I'm a junkie. A digital junkie, like pretty much the rest of the modern world.
You doubt I am? Well, let me offer you another piece of evidence.
After finishing the conversation with Technical Support, I reached out to my desk drawers to find an Internet USB that I got from my employer ‘in case I face some internet issues while working from home’.
I was entering the password with the echo in my head ‘48 hours? We’ll see about that.’
Well, we might see about that but probably next time. This time the USB internet was not loaded with a credit so it turned out to be ‘Temporarily out of service’.
‘I still have my mobile… I will use a hotspot today and by tomorrow it might work again.’ This was the thought that shook me unprepared and sort of disguised me the moment it appeared in my head.
Oftentimes when I’m with my teenage nephews and see them scroll the screens evening long, I make jokes about it. I make fun of people sitting in restaurants or cafes and constantly draw their look towards flashing screens. How disrespectful to their company. It would be better if they did not meet in the first place. I truly despise it and try to avoid it at any cause – while out with someone, during the meetings or while waiting for someone.
We miss moments of our life while we are scrolling.
No doubt that I have proficiently acquired the theoretical part of this modern age philosophy. I have read so many books on the topic, watched some documentaries and even made it clear for myself how it works on a neurochemical level.
All is clear.
The Internet is a disease of our time, connectivity and FOMO rule our lives.
But not mine.
I am all above that sh**.
Except I am not.
It’s almost 2 PM on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
My internet connection is down and will remain down for another up to 42 hours. Hopefully?
I have finished two debriefs and one deck for my private projects working offline. I don’t think that the quality of the work has suffered from the lack of my connectivity.
In the meanwhile I have connected to my mobile hotspot four times: - I have shared my debriefs via email. - I have checked my social media accounts twice (“I am connected so let’s see… “) - I have exchanged some messages on WhatsApp. Private and business related. Twice.
Whole morning my brain is busy contemplating many thoughts running in its background. Ultimately they all boil down to one single question:
How will I exit the looping hell of internet addiction?
'The average person checks their phone 150 times a day. Why do we do this? Are we making 150 conscious choices? One major reason why is the #1 psychological ingredient in slot machines: intermittent variable rewards . . . Addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable.'
Tristan Harris, ‘Social Dilemma’ documentary
'Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools.'
'Digital Minimalism A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.'
'The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable.”
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