Sometimes modern technology can take over your life. As useful as mobile phones, Blackberrys and the like are, I don't always want to be connected to society. This past weekend, I made an effort to reduce the amount of time I spent reading blogs, Twittering and Facebooking. In fact, I went cold turkey.
And I waited for the world to come to an end.
Surprise! It didn't!
After I got over the shaking, the nervous sweats and the twitching, I actually enjoyed the outside world, tooling about in the weak spring sunshine. I sat on my sofa - sans computer - and read a book. I resisted checking Google Mail to see if any agents had written. I lived my life! And I enjoyed it!
Don't get me wrong - I was chomping at the bit to get back to my computer today. Lifting the lid of my laptop was magical. Logging onto Twitter was like devouring a football field of chocolate bars. But my weekend without the Internet reminded me that real life is just as good (minus the chocolate, though). And that's all too easily forgotten as we become immersed in online worlds. They're great for connecting us with others, but are they disconnecting us from ourselves?
6 comments:
It's addictive, isn't it? ;)
I had a few non-Internetted days over Spring Break, but since I didn't proclaim to myself they would be Internet-free days, I had the nagging feeling that I needed to go online and write on my blog (I'm working to build up readership, I can't just disappear for days! Those few, straggling readers will abandon me!)
I make blogging part of my to-do list, and this past week I feel I really dropped the ball on lots of writing-related things, most of them online. Next week I'll be out of town at a retreat, though, so I'll have to go Internet-free... hopefully this time I'll manage to stay guilt-free as well!
(By the way, you were missed. I was thinking this morning how you hadn't blogged over the weekend.)
Nancy, they are SO addictive! It's scary the amount of time I spend on them.
Criss, glad I was missed. :) It is hard to blog everyday... sometimes you need to recharge! What's the retreat? Is it writing related?
It's the annual women's retreat with my church. I wish it were a writing retreat!
There's a writing conference here in DFW in May, though... I'm very tempted to go. It will be my first!
Its all very time consuming. How anyone blogs more than twice a week is beyond me!
I make the effort to keep up with my blog mostly because it's fun. The purpose was so that family and friends could get updates on what I was doing but it does become all consuming to stay on top of it at times.
I relish the times I am away from most technology...the longer away the less you think about it.
Post a Comment