This past weekend, Amanda from Something To Ponder About and I decided to go without the internet for 48 hours. Amanda has already posted her experience so it would be interesting to also read her thoughts on our offline weekend as well. With the internet so engrained in our daily lives, would we find this easy enough? Are we more addicted than we first thought? What will our days look like? No apps, emails and browsing except phone calls for emergencies.
I was excited to do the experiment and also had some doubt about myself. Would I have the internet itch and be looking at phone resisting the urge to touch it like a 3 year old looking at a forbidden chocolate bar?
Day 1
My first thought when I woke up was “how freeing”. I didn’t expect to think this or feel a sense of relief immediately. The only explanation I can think of is that maybe I was already so bothered about being contactable at any moment of any day or this added thing that I needed to check. Call me an introvert but there seemed to be something more empowering about deciding when you can be contacted.
By now, I would’ve already caught up on all the social media happenings since I was last awake. Realistically, this is not needed. The world continues on with or without me and I don’t need to know about what has transpired in the areas that I’m interested in in the last 8 hours.
Being abroad means that I have more things to do and entertain myself with. My day consisted of a farmer’s market, bike riding, making lunch and even trying to make a summer drink.
I didn’t feel the need to check my phone but did pull it out to take pictures. I did think about using my digital camera instead but to save space in my bag, went with my phone.
By the afternoon, I realised that I was thinking about how I would have already sent a few pictures to friends/family and some running thoughts that I’ve had. I can always send them later and didn’t need to do things instantly. Have I been treating my relationship with others as a more surface level ‘they are always just a message away’ instead of really treasuring the relationship? Do I do enough and say enough to them when I’m with them to express my gratitude? Maybe this needs further exploring.
There were times during the day where I had a thought and wanted to look up something on google but couldn’t. This is what I missed the most. Being able to search information instantly.
Day 2
The next morning was similar to the day previously. It didn’t bother me at all that I couldn’t check my phone and went about my daily routine in peace. Instead of being preoccupied with what others were doing and had to say, I was more worried about my day and what I would be doing as this 31 degree C European summer day lay ahead of me.
My morning was spent picking blueberries on a my friend’s plot of land and in the late afternoon, we went to have a wander around town where a festival was taking place. I read on my kindle while waiting for the peak of the heat to pass. I felt settled and calm.
My disconnect to the internet was broken at midday when I bumped into my friend’s family member whilst I was walking back alone. We needed Google Translate to communicate so I had to connect to purely use this app. Where would we be without the internet? Not talking.
By night, I was still not really missing the phone and even had to remind myself that I would be able to turn on wifi the next morning.
Final Thoughts
I was definitely less distracted through the weekend and more focused on the activity at hand without having my ear listening out for a ping or thinking that I was bored. I felt that I could’ve done another day of being offline and am now thinking how I can limit my ‘connectiveness’.
One action that I did straight away was turn off some app notifications that I could’ve done a long time ago but did not.
I’ve come to realise that we are never really offline at all. We’re still contactable all day at work and then all night as well within our personal lives. Maybe by allocating only certain times of the day to be connected to the internet/apps, I can try and regain more quiet time in my life without the pings going off around the clock.
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