A Week Without The Internet

“We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us.” ~John Kenneth Galbraith
I had to live almost an entire week without the services of my computer. I don't know what happened, but sometime last Sunday afternoon, the thing quit on me and wouldn't boot back up. There was a flash of a blue screen, then something about Safe Mode, and a whole lot of begging for the next push of the power button to finally have solved the problem.
It did not. The problem was only solved by a pile of money, specifically $113, paid to a very talented computer repair man by the name of Don. He lives in Valley Center, which is helpful and convenient, but when I first dropped my machine off, I was a little worried because he is of an age that means he probably got to stay home from high school when Kennedy was shot. To my delight, Don alleviated all my fears and worked his magic over the course of a day.
I had a bit of a nervous fit when I got it home, however, because it wouldn't immediately just connect to the internet like it did when I first got it. I went through the checklist of what the problem could be, and after about an hour of messing with it, tried an option called "bridge connection" between my LAN connection and another non-internet option. Whatever it was, it worked, and I am once again plugged into the World Wide Web.
Being gone for that long was weird for me, as someone who not only recreates with a good web surfing session, but also spends much of his work-related time using the information superhighway. I literally had to push a few work projects back until next week because of my lack of connectivity, although I was able to get a few done over the weekend.
The point is, I realized just how dependent I am on my computer, and especially my connection to the internet. Looking back at this week, I can't tell you how many times I literally got up from where I was sitting and started walking over to the computer chair, purely out of habit, before I remembered that old internet machine was out of commission. I would estimate that a good 80% of my life centers around what's happening online, from work to Facebook to blogging to all the things I read to stay caught up on things (for both work and recreation).
I wouldn't classify myself as someone who is always "plugged in" (although I do have a Blackberry now, so I feel like I'm never completely disengaged), so I can't help but wonder how some of the truly nerdy folks out there spend their days and/or nights.
But I've often commented about how connected we all are these days; it's really good in some ways (like staying in touch with friends and family around the world) and can be kind of overkill in other ways (like how easy it is to look things up on your smart phone instead of using your brain for a few minutes to try and remember the answer), but either way, it's a fact of life. Whether you love it or hate it, the internet has us all in its web...if you'll pardon the obvious pun.
But much like the fake world of The Matrix, most of us prefer this pseudo-slavery to the alternative. It's not like the outdoors are awful, but I admit that I'm an indoor kid – when you're online, you don't have to worry about sunburn, or bugs, or getting all sweaty (well, depends on how much surfing you do), or the pesky restraints of reality. In my little Farm Town world on Facebook, I can plow, plant seeds, grow crops, talk to other "farmers," play with my little doggy, and work for "coins" while I'm munching on peanut butter M&Ms. I can talk to my friends without the inconvenience of putting on pants and driving somewhere. I can play a card game with people from Croatia, France, Italy, Peru, and a host of other places across the globe (and use Google Translate to carry on basic conversations with them all in their native languages).
It gets me thinking about the idea of how big an individual person's world is and has been through history. For hundreds of years, the average person could expect to live the entirety of his or her life within a radius of less than 100 miles, if even that. Unless you had exorbitant amounts of money, you simply couldn't go very far away from where you lived. Your personal world would have existed only within walking or horse riding distance from your home.
But the world, as they say, is getting smaller, and it's not uncommon to hear stories of people traveling all across the world before they finish college. This has shown up in my own life – I now live more than 3,000 miles away from where I was born and raised, and I'm only 28 years old. For the better part of a year, my brother, with whom I shared a room for around 18 years, lived almost exactly on the other side of the globe from me, and has plans to return there in January. And yet, my mom got to go to his wedding, which took place in Kenya, even though she is very much not Kenyan. My other brother and his growing family are in North Carolina, and despite the distance, I get to see photos of my nephew's third birthday, and send him a video tour of where I live. I get to physically travel to see my family at Christmas, and it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. Well, not the whole leg, anyway.
I guess what I'm getting at is that progress is happening so quickly these days that to take a step back from it all really makes your head spin. I was without internet for five days, and I felt incredibly out of the loop until I logged back on. It's not like that for everybody, I realize, but the way the world is heading, it might be that way for everybody sooner than we think. I guess it's comparable to the beginning of the 20th century, when all these inventions – the automobile, the telephone, the...um...cotton gin? – were starting to show up.
Like it was with computers, only the rich could afford these things at first; they were strictly luxury items. But there aren't many people in the world without a telephone these days, and automobiles are everywhere. Luxury items (which some surely thought of as frivolous and unnecessary) became necessity, and it's hard to imagine a world without them. The internet is that way now, and if we learned anything from the trends of these important new inventions, I imagine that online access will quickly become an expectation instead of just a welcome luxury.
At least, that's the plan...but first, someone needs to invent a truly crash-proof computer. When that happens (and no, Apple geeks, it still hasn't happened) it will truly be revolutionary.