I thought this was a fascinating article. As a tech geek and internet-connected Christian, I find myself feeling “guilty” (not really, but I can’t think of a better word) for my reliance on technology because of other peoples’ views on the subject. Silly, right? But It seems in Christian circles that the internet and technology are increasingly being assigned a value judgement of “bad”, when in reality they are inherently neither “bad” nor “good” – it is our methods of use and/or overuse of these things that can be deemed “bad” or “good”. As with many – I dare say most – things in this imperfect life, we must make intentional, informed decisions on our use of the internet and technology and it can be hard work! I have found that there are fabulous ways to use the internet in God-honoring, community building ways if I am creative and practice a great deal of self-control – that’s the hard part.
The young man in this article is not writing, speaking (in the video) or responding to his quest as a Christian, although he does make reference to being raised in the church for some time as a child and had an ESV Bible on his bookshelf. But he makes some very valuable observations about what he learned. His experiment did not come out quite the way he expected, but it did show him some great things about himself and his use of the internet. Here are a couple that stood out to me:
– The internet is not all bad, even in developing and maintaining relationships. He felt very disconnected from friends and family because he could not Skype (video chat) with his young niece and nephew in another state and he could not just easily text and coordinate with his friends, so he his personality was such that he just didn’t make an effort to connect socially. It seems odd, but he actually felt like he did a better job with an actual face-to-face social life when he had texting to help him coordinate and stay in contact with people.
– He learned that, with or without the internet, he needed to make better decisions about what he wished to spend his time on. He found that he was just as good at wasting his time on meaningless things without the internet as with. So he learned that he needed to look outside of himself and on to what he could do with and for others rather than being wrapped up in himself and pure entertainment in the here and now.
Well, enough of my observations. Read the article for yourself…
I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet
By Paul Miller 05.01.2013
I was wrong.
One year ago I left the internet. I thought it was making me unproductive. I thought it lacked meaning. I thought it was “corrupting my soul.”
It’s a been a year now since I “surfed the web” or “checked my email” or “liked” anything with a figurative rather than literal thumbs up. I’ve managed to stay disconnected, just like I planned. I’m internet free.
And now I’m supposed to tell you how it solved all my problems. I’m supposed to be enlightened. I’m supposed to be more “real,” now. More perfect.
But instead it’s 8PM and I just woke up. I slept all day, woke with eight voicemails on my phone from friends and coworkers. I went to my coffee shop to consume dinner, the Knicks game, my two newspapers, and a copy ofThe New Yorker. And now I’m watching Toy Story while I glance occasionally at the blinking cursor in this text document, willing it to write itself, willing it to generate the epiphanies my life has failed to produce.
I didn’t want to meet this Paul at the tail end of my yearlong journey.
Click here to view his Video documentary of his year without the internet
In early 2012 I was 26 years old and burnt out. I wanted a break from modern life — the hamster wheel of an email inbox, the constant flood of WWW information which drowned out my sanity. I wanted to escape.
I thought the internet might be an unnatural state for us humans, or at least for me. Maybe I was too ADD to handle it, or too impulsive to restrain my usage. I’d used the internet constantly since I was twelve, and as my livelihood since I was fourteen. I’d gone from paperboy, to web designer, to technology writer in under a decade. I didn’t know myself apart from a sense of ubiquitous connection and endless information. I wondered what else there was to life. “Real life,” perhaps, was waiting for me on the other side of the web browser.
My plan was to quit my job, move home with my parents, read books, write books, and wallow in my spare time. In one glorious gesture I’d outdo all quarter-life crises to come before me. I’d find the real Paul, far away from all the noise, and become a better me.
MY GOAL WOULD BE TO DISCOVER WHAT THE INTERNET HAD DONE TO ME OVER THE YEARS
But for some reason, The Verge wanted to pay me to leave the internet. I could stay in New York and share my findings with the world, beam missives about my internet-free life to the citizens of the internet I’d left behind, sprinkle wisdom on them from my high tower.
My goal, as a technology writer, would be to discover what the internet had done to me over the years. To understand the internet by studying it “at a distance.” I wouldn’t just become a better human, I would help us all to become better humans. Once we understood the ways in which the internet was corrupting us, we could finally fight back.
At 11:59PM on April 30th, 2012, I unplugged my Ethernet cable, shut off my Wi-Fi, and swapped my smartphone for a dumb one. It felt really good. I felt free.
A couple weeks later, I found myself among 60,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews, pouring into New York’s Citi Field to learn from the world’s most respected rabbis about the dangers of the internet. Naturally. Outside the stadium, I was spotted by a man brandishing one of my own articles about leaving the internet. He was ecstatic to meet me. I had chosen to avoid the internet for many of the same reasons his religion expressed caution about the modern world.
“It’s reprogramming our relationships, our emotions, and our sensitivity,” said one of the rabbis at the rally. It destroys our patience. It turns kids into “click vegetables.”
My new friend outside the stadium encouraged me to make the most of my year, to “stop and smell the flowers.”
This was going to be amazing.
Read the rest of the article here: http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/5/1/4279674/im-still-here-back-online-after-a-year-without-the-internet
Related articles
- I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet (theverge.com)
- My Year Without the Internet (newser.com)
- He Unplugged From The Internet For A Year. This Is What He Learned. (kotaku.com)
