'Life Without the Web'

In 1995, I spent the summer staying with relatives while I was interning. They had a DVD player, which hadn't been out long, and a modem that was about 10 times faster than what I was used to.

When I had to go back to my VHS player and 9600 modem, I was pretty upset.

 

Why would I *want* to do that?

 

As he explains in the opening column, it's essentially an intervention on himself. He felt that he was becoming psychologically addicted to the Internet, i.e. compulsive checking, etc., etc. He says his productivity was poor because he would while away the hours on the Internet, and didn't feel "present" with his family because he was thinking about his next time online, and so forth and so on.

I don't think there's an ulterior motive - like proving his superiority - beyond what he says is his motivation.

 

Thought it was pretty simple. If you want to dig through your pile of media guides and encyclopedias for stuff, instead of searching on the Net, bon apetit.

 

I'd like to go back to the good old days. If you wanted to contact someone, you wrote a letter, mailed it and figured it would take 2-3 days to get there. Maybe one day if Canada Post was really on their game.

Then the other person would respond, mail their letter and you'd get it in a couple of days. So, five work days have gone by and you've achieved what we now achieve in anywhere from one minute to one day.

And we're talking around 1985 or so. Of course, this delay in response time ended with the Fax Revolution.

Adapt or die.

 

There is a book - "The Tyranny of Email" - that came out last year that argued exactly that. That we have lost something because of today's rapid response communication model.

Again, I don't think the Slate columnist necessarily thinks the Internet is inherently evil or something that he wants to do away with permanently. Some of his columns express how he didn't realize how reliant we've become on the Internet to make our lives easier and more efficient. But the problem isn't use, it is misuse. There are a million analogues in the world. We don't have to grow our own food nowadays, with a grocery store or two or five in every town. However, easy and efficient access to fruits and vegetables also means easy access to Ho Ho's and Cocoa Puffs and soda and Chips Ahoy.

You can't stop progress. But you can abuse it.

 

I'm addicted. Sportsjournalists.com, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, Deadspin, newspaper sites: I check them all multiple times per day. I check my e-mail as soon as I wake up in the morning. Check into facebook and twitter once I hit my desk at work. I have my blackberry set to Pandora at the gym, and so I often times get distracted and tweet, or facebook.

I have my phone everywhere, except business meetings and church. I've taken it on the boat to send twit pics and I've used the BBM feature during track meets I host to communicate to coaches.

I am lost without my phone and the apps that are on it and that extends to my laptop and internet explorer.

 

You need to discover women. Tho I guess you can do that on the Net, too

 

Women are definitely better on the Net.

 

The stuff that applies in the song Fish Heads applies to those women, too.