Going cold turkey on the internet
Living in an era of ubiquitous connectivity is amazing. At our fingertips, wherever we are in the world is the sum total of humanity’s collective knowledge. Technology is the great emancipator: No longer is information trapped in ivory towers and on the corridors of power: Liberation is only a tweet away.
Which is why it was a bit odd to go on holiday in the Forest of Dean.
About three days before we set off on a five day holiday to the Welsh border, to stay with some friends in a holiday cottage I made a horrifying discovery: Knowing that my appetite for status updates and wiki-pedantry is insatiable, I emailed ahead to just double check that there would be wifi in the cottage. I mean, of course it will have wifi — this is the 21st century, right? Horrifyingly, it turned out that the cottage boasted not all mod-cons, but merely only some of them. And the one it lacked was the most essential.
In a panic, I hurriedly checked the O2 network coverage checker. I could always, tether, right? Hey, I might not be able to upload much video but at least I’d get my tweets and emails. I filled in the postcode and stared in horror: 4G coverage was non-existent. I clicked the next tab — and the pit of my stomach cried out as 3G was also not an option. Next tab: Oh god… there’s not even any 2G signal. That means no GPRS, which whilst useless occasionally lets the odd notification or email through. When I arrived at the cottage the “No Signal” icon on my iPhone became a permanent fixture. This was it. This my nightmare. I was going cold turkey on the internet.
Suddenly having the internet turned off is a very strange experience for someone so used to being connected. The anxiety caused by short outages of my 50Mb fibre broadband at home became spread out. A low-level hum at the back of my brain as I began to wonder if anyone had Liked my recent witticisms, what was trending, and what everyone was angry with Richard Dawkins about now. I had no way of knowing, and it was driving me mad.
Soon the holiday became less about enjoying the beautiful scenery or the company of my friends, but about seeking out connectivity. My phone was going into shock — and I had it in the recovery position, raised above my head, desperately hoping that all was not lost and that I’d eventually feel a ping.
My first hit of internet in hours came very briefly during a trip to Chepstow Tesco. There was a wifi network — so I eagerly logged on to find out what was happening. It was like I was a Japanese soldier emerging from the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, learning about how the world had changed: Russia had kicked things up a notch and opened a second front in eastern Ukraine, and Joan Rivers was no longer making controversial remarks about the war in Gaza, but instead was in critical condition. I inhaled as much internet as I could whilst I had the chance.
Unfortunately before I knew it the Clubcard was handed back, the shopping trip was complete and so it was back into the unknown.
Some hours later — around 9:30pm — I was getting anxious again. Had my sister posted any more photos of her guinea pigs? Had the internet finally decided what the best sort of feminism was yet? Was Joan Rivers still with us? Luckily, the Lord intervened.
Though remote, the cottage we were staying in was just opposite a hotel. A hotel which — if rumours were to be believed — had a wifi connection. The slightly awkward thing was though that it wasn’t a normal hotel, but one devoted to Christian Ministry.
All junkies do things that they’re not proud of in pursuit of getting a fix. So it was with a sense of dread that I headed down the hill in the near darkness towards the light in the distance, fully prepared to pretend to be an enthusiastic Christian if it meant I could twitpic a funny signpost that I saw.
I moved towards the light and eventually dared step inside to what would have been called the hotel bar, had the residents not been Methodists. I was greeted not by St Peter, but by a surprisingly hostile hotel receptionist, who eventually confirmed that I was allowed to use the wifi. I pulled out my phone, scanned for wifi and Praise The Lord for he hath delivered — a network! I had reached out in my time of need and got a signal back. Sure, the signal was prone to drop outs and was unreliable, but remaining in character as a committed Christian I decided to follow in its rich theological tradition and take the limited feedback and make the best of it.
As I awkwardly sat in the hotel lobby inhaling as much information as I could, I suddenly felt rather awkward. This was, after all, a hotel not just for Christians, but for Ministry — spreading the word and all that. What if the wifi policy was pray as you go, or what if someone there wanted to test my Biblical knowledge? What if they rumbled my lack of faith? Heck, what if it turned out to be a retreat for a weird Christian cult and I was never going to see the outside world? So desperate was I for a fix at this point that I probably would have joined in speaking in tongues if it bought me time whilst my emails synchronised.
Sensing danger, after one last refresh of my tweets I decided to quit whilst I was ahead lest the short-tempered receptionist decided to call out the Rover to chase me down. I knew that leaving now meant no more internet until at least the middle of the day the next day: That would be around 14 or 15 hours orbiting around the dark side of the moon on my own.
The next day my heart sunk both literally and metaphorically as I descended into the depths of an ancient iron mine on the border. No longer was I merely in a signal-free valley but it was like I was actively seeking seclusion. If Putin had decided to launch the nukes at London on any other day, I would be easily vaporised as the warheads detonated in Parliament Square — but now it was no longer a case of a four minute warning, or even a four hour warning. I was now so cut off from the world that once I emerged I’d be one of the people forced to attempt to rebuild civilisation in a radioactive hellscape. At least I could have argued in favour of better mobile coverage as we rebuild the world from scratch.
As it turned out though, international order remained and I was able to emerge normally from the almost-literal pit of despair. As I ascended the stairs and exited through the the giftshop, a signpost caught my eye.
The mine had a tearoom which brilliantly, came fully equipped with those two magic words: “BT Openzone”. Whilst my friends stocked up on food and tea, I logged on to find out what I had missed. Ah, the Conway Hall newsletter and the news that Ukraine now wants to join NATO. And better still, someone had pressed “Like” on a pun I posted to Facebook three days ago. Still no word on Joan Rivers — though there wasn’t any “RIP” tweets, and nor was Twitter entering into a meta-argument about the coverage of her death, so I assumed things were looking up for her.
What was a bit strange about logging on though was how in only a very short period of time, I had become unaccustomed to consuming so much information. Taking a pure and uncut hit of my 200 most recent tweets on Tweetbot felt like a dramatic shot in the arm. I was struggling to take it all in and felt strangely disengaged. Despite having opinions on almost every tweet I scrolled past, for some reason I didn’t feel the need to post them. What was happening to me?! I felt like I was drowning in new information — I didn’t know what to comment on first. Something was wrong.
I switched to Facebook knowing that things are a bit gentler there. Ah, another 50 ice bucket challenge videos that could be safely ignored.
Before I could really say anything myself, or make it on to my Feedly RSS feeds the needle was yanked out — we were moving on away from the beacon of civilisation back into the mysterious darkness. From the Openzone, to the Twilight Zone.
The next night things got even worse: We were sat around in the lounge area, talking about what — at last time we checked — were the issues of the day. A discussion about the electoral prospects of the Liberal Democrats got rather heated and for the first time in years, we were unable to settle it by checking what it said on the internet. We were flying through a sea of conjecture, with no facts by which to drop anchor. This must be what it felt like to argue in the 1990s.
It was at this point I began to wonder if I had a problem. Is it wrong to need this much internet? Is it a disease of the modern age to require the constant validation of strangers’ likes? Or is it merely a reflection of an innate human desire to leave no thought unuttered?
My attempt to go cold turkey on the internet was just turning me into an anxious junkie. Perhaps I should seek help? Perhaps I should check-in to Harley Street? Who knows, I might even become Mayor of Rehab.
