A day without the Internet

The Internet has given society many wonderful things. It has allowed the World Wide Web to work, files to be transferred, and so much more, but has it really gotten to the point where everything we do has to be done online?

The first example is Facebook. I am aware that lately so many people are moaning, begging even, about being accepted on my Facebook account, or I simply am not friends with them. I am not sure how that works, but surely that must mean I chat and only do social things with my friends online. Let me find out.

Oh right, that was a quick answer. Barely anyone on my Facebook profile do I talk to on Facebook, very little do I even get tagged in photos, or so much more.

Facebook for me does not provide anything other than a method to contact a few people I do not have e-mail addresses for and heck most people who I physically now will have a method to be able to contact me without the aid of any form of Internet connection and those that do not are people who physically could not contact me anyway due to either their location (such as living abroad), to lazy or just can not wait for a reply and must always be chatting as every chance.

Last week I had a few people “moan at me” saying that they are feeling left out and no longer able to contact and be “social” with me. I am guessing those people are completely forgetting about the following:

• My two e-mail addresses.
• Google Wave
• Twitter (@snatty)
• GTalk
• MSN
• Playstation Network
• Mobile Phone
• Matthew’s Portfolio
• Just a Community
• Tweaked for your Pleasure

But Facebook is not the topic of this article today, it was only an example of something so many people use in their lives. On Monday, I was helping out at a local college and went there for a few hours as a guest speaker, and when I got home, I thought to myself, let’s see if anyone has emailed me.

Then I thought for a few minutes when I looked at my ASUS laptop powering on. Who would have emailed me, and if they did email me, would it actually be important enough? If it were very important, then the person would either be sorted by now or would have tried phoning me. Seeing my phone was on me and no one tried ringing, then that must mean they need me urgently.

Then I thought, what if someone is trying to contact me? Well, if they are trying to contact me, then they would have emailed me, and I can check those messages whenever I want. If they were contacting me online, then clearly it is not that important and they can wait a while before a reply. So I thought to myself for a few minutes – why should I go online?

I was not really in the mood to sign onto any messaging clients to have a chat with people, and if they needed me, then they know how to e-mail me or at least are smart enough to go onto my personal website and click the contact page. I then thought to myself what if some random person is trying to contact me?

The same applies to them, and if they somehow contacted me, then it would either be by Twitter or e-mail, as the other usage is off-limits to them. So I then decided I did not really have to sign onto the Internet, as the only reasons were to check e-mails and just to have a chat with a few people. Thinking to myself I have been social enough for the day, I decided just to put the laptop away and go and read a book.

The moral of the tale is we do not need to be online every day of our lives. Sure, it is a great thing being able to chat to anyone 24/7 but we do not need it. We really should not spend all our time online just because someone else wants to contact us or because we feel we have to.

I did appear online for a few hours at the end of the day to check up on things, though and sure enough, I was right.