Think about how often you use Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, or Google Maps. Notifications come through on your phone such as “Robin commented on your photo” or “Snapchat from Mike” or “Breaking News: Russia withdraws troops.” Normally you slide your finger across the notification to see the photo or breaking news story. But in China, internet restrictions render the modern Westerner’s internet habits useless and you’re left to wonder what idiotic thing your friends were doing on that Snapchat.

I recently left China after 12 days of traveling from the South to the North and this was my fifth time visiting the country in the past two years. There are many things that I love about China, but there’s one thing that makes me crazy every time: the Internet. I’ve been traveling for the past 4 months and no place was as frustrating (and less productive) as my time in China where internet censorship has become pervasive in ways a Westerner can’t begin to fathom. Tack on the fact that Wifi and cell phone services are less reliable than in places like Camobodia and Myanmar and my frustrations teetered on rage. It’s well known that the Chinese government heavily censors the internet, and the social and cultural effects of that censorship are significant.

Normally, when I visit a new city Google Maps helps me get around. It helps me find a bus route across town or locate the nearest post office. I use Instagram to tell stories and share my travels. I send messages to friends on Facebook, FaceTime my family and send plenty of ridiculous (but highly entertaining) Snapchats to my friends. In China though, these habits either stopped completely or were so heavily restricted I was frustrated to the point of quitting.

As the rest of the world has become reliant on social media and internet services developed by Western companies, China has further restricted the internet. It has blocked some of these sites all together and strictly limits how well others work. Chinese companies that are owned or heavily influenced by the government have built their own version of many popular internet services (WeChat, QQ, YouKu, Baidu, etc.), but that only serves to box Chinese users into disconnected, private networks. If China wishes to continue attracting foreign companies as part of an evolotuion away from a factory based economy (as well as tourists), it must recognize that such restrictions make it infinitely harder for outsiders to travel, do business and assimilate in China.

Setting up a VPN is one way to circumvent the restrictions, but these work slowly and inconsistently at best. (A “Virtual Private Network” routes your internet traffic to another country where the internet is not restricted, allowing you to avoid censorship.) VPNs are tedious to setup; you have to turn them on-and-off; and China’s data networks are so poor in some places that your connection regularly times out. Most people who live in China don’t set up VPNs. They’re content using the Chinese equivalents of YouTube, Facebook, and Google. And they should be, as those services are full featured, reliable and they are the networks that their Chinese friends use, meaning there’s no need to subscribe to another service or fight the firewall to use Facebook.

Again, most Chinese are perfectly content with their internet — it meets their daily needs. And I’m the foreigner who decided to go on holiday in China knowing full well what the internet situation is, so what’s my gripe? My issue is this: when traveling, language barriers are understandable; cultural differences, expected; but it’s the 21st century and we should be living in an interconnected world where technology bridges boundaries, and doesn’t create them. My 9 month backpacking trip has me visiting over 25 countries where I will meet people from all over the world, a few of whom I’ll want to stay in touch with. A few years ago we would have done that with email, and before that a good ole’ physical address, but today it’s Facebook. Though, when I meet a Chinese traveler and we reach the point of wanting to exchange details there’s typically an awkward moment of, “Oh yeah, you don’t have Facebook, so I guess we’ll exchange…email addresses?”

Internet censorship is a relatively new annoyance for a traveler. A few years ago all you needed was a Lonely Planet, the advice of a stranger, a map and some Chinese phrases scribbled in a notebook. But in the age of technology the internet can make things easier and better. In every country preceding China I would buy a SIM Card on arrival and immediately be connected to all my familiar sites and services. I use Instagram and Facebook to meet up with other travelers, Google Maps to plan my route, and I refresh my New York Times app for the latest news (I’m crossing the Russian — Ukrainian border soon, so the news is important). The internet allows me to cram more things into a day, properly research my trip and avoid making mistakes. Those habits were either impossible or extremely difficult to maintain in China.

The primary reason for China restricting the internet is the Government’s effort to shape and control the flow of information to the Chinese people. (I believe this is wrong. The internet should be free of censorship, but this article is interested in the social ramifications of existing restrictions, not the ethics of them.) By doing this China is building a modern day iron curtain. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman describes our modern world as increasingly ‘interconnected and interdependent’. The internet is connecting people around the world faster than ever — fostering business ventures, friendships and cultural exchanges in ways that are unprecedented in human history. But in China, where internet restrictions are building a virtual wall against the outside world the push toward interconnectedness is severely hampered. For those with perseverance and the tech know-how they can circumvent the restrictions. But the internet should be for the masses, not for a few techies. In essence, technology should make our lives easier, not harder.

These ideas are not a product of a spoiled Westerner’s over-reliance on 21st century technology. I’d argue that its an authentic look at a very real, growing divide between China and rest of the world. The Chinese government is either building a bubble that shields its people from the outside world thus uniting them, or it’s constructing smoke and mirrors that may one day clear leaving a billion people in many ways isolated from the rest of the world. The Chinese government is working very hard to ensure that it’s the former outcome, while the march of technology will push things toward the latter. I think it’ll be a bit of both.