A World Disconnected

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Abstract

t access?I do remember a time before the internet. Well, sort of. I remember when I was about 10-years old and I first got dial-up internet at home. It was painfully slow and if anyone tried to call the house, it would disconnect. The rules back then were an hour each per evening for me, my brother, and my sister. We were only allowed to use the internet after 6 pm, because it was ridiculously expensive to connect during the day.If I were to wake up tomorrow and the internet was gone, more than anything I think I’d be lonely. I maintain a lot of friendships with people in different countries and most of the people I consider friends live in the USA. A lot of them are people I’ve known for years, that I met on the Internet, and others are people I met on travels and kept in touch with ever since.Not only wou

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ld I be lonely, but I’d also definitely be extremely bored. Nearly everything I do every day requires internet access. Whether that’s reading and writing on Medium, using social networks, playing games, talking to my friends and family, studying, or doing my job… The internet is central to everything.I guess you could say I’m addicted but, I think we all are. I definitely take it for granted and, honestly, I don’t think I’d be able to cope without it, if it was to randomly disappear from my life.I love the internet!This was written as a freewriting exercise while at work, thanks to a prompt from <a href="undefined">Ellie Jacobson</a> at <a href="https://readmedium.com/freewriting-friday-saving-an-abdandoned-draft-imagining-an-internetless-world-signs-from-the-392b6f0db1ee">Flint and Steel</a>.</article></body>

What would it be like to live without the Internet?

It seems impossible to imagine a world without the internet now; a world where we couldn’t just contact each other within seconds from the other side of the planet. It’s crazy to think of a time when we didn’t just have all the information in the world at our fingertips, and education and reading required a trip to the library.

Can you remember the days before widespread internet access?

I do remember a time before the internet. Well, sort of. I remember when I was about 10-years old and I first got dial-up internet at home. It was painfully slow and if anyone tried to call the house, it would disconnect. The rules back then were an hour each per evening for me, my brother, and my sister. We were only allowed to use the internet after 6 pm, because it was ridiculously expensive to connect during the day.

If I were to wake up tomorrow and the internet was gone, more than anything I think I’d be lonely. I maintain a lot of friendships with people in different countries and most of the people I consider friends live in the USA. A lot of them are people I’ve known for years, that I met on the Internet, and others are people I met on travels and kept in touch with ever since.

Not only would I be lonely, but I’d also definitely be extremely bored. Nearly everything I do every day requires internet access. Whether that’s reading and writing on Medium, using social networks, playing games, talking to my friends and family, studying, or doing my job… The internet is central to everything.

I guess you could say I’m addicted but, I think we all are. I definitely take it for granted and, honestly, I don’t think I’d be able to cope without it, if it was to randomly disappear from my life.

I love the internet!

This was written as a freewriting exercise while at work, thanks to a prompt from Ellie Jacobson at Flint and Steel.