A day without the Internet

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

The first example is Facebook. I am aware 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. In fact, let me find out.

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

Facebook for me really 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

Excluding them though, why does it matter really if someone is not added on something. Do you think you are missing out something really cool that is hidden on my Facebook profile. For those that claims they are missing out on everything just because they are not on my Facebook profile then looking at the image on the right to see what you are missing out.

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 New College Stamford and went there for a few hours as a guest speaker and when I got home though I thought to myself lets see if anyone has e-mailed me.

Then I thought for a few minutes when I looked at my ASUS laptop powering on. Who would have e-mailed me and if they did email me would it actually be important enough. If it was 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 needs 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 e-mailed 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 actually go online.

I was not really in a mood to sign onto any messaging clients to have a chat with people and if they really needed me then they know how to e-mail me or at least 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.

Same applies to them and if they somehow contacted me then it would either be by Twitter or e-mail as the other usage are 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 either 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.