Quitting The Internet

Speaking of getting back on the horse, one of the evergreen challenges of my life right now is limiting the amount of time I waste on the internet.

I make it sound like I spend hours in front of my computer. I don't, actually. My life doesn't really allow it - I probably spend more time exercising than I do browsing the web each day. The problem is that my day has become so full that I need to cut weight wherever I can. The internet is the easiest cut to make.

I do have some experience at quitting the habit. A year ago, I made a competitive bet with someone; the terms were that both of us would go without frivolous browsing for a month - whoever committed the most transgressions would owe the winner fifty dollars.

Unfortunately, this was not a successful experiment. For reasons I won't go into, I had a vested interest in LOSING the competition. So each time my competitor would record a failure of willpower, I would offer up one or two of own. Some were legitimate, some were falsified. And since I knew I was going to lose, I figured I might as well get some browsing out of it. Things went downhill from there. In any case, I was out fifty bucks at the end of the month.

For the handful of days in which I managed to avoid the internet, though, my quality of life improved. My mind was clearer, I suffered from less hurry sickness, I opened books and read them. But I discovered that quitting cold turkey wasn't a good approach.

Quitting the internet is difficult primarily because the barrier to entry - a single mouseclick - is so low. Also because there is often a never-ending supply of new things to be clicked, even on a single site. And because other activities you engage in while seated at your computer - e-mail, shopping, blogging - transition naturally to a hazy and perpetual wasted state (see my first reason). If you work a job that involves a pc, it's even worse. There are many slow periods throughout the day, which encourages you to kill time, which slackens your browsing discipline (if it ever existed) considerably.

My new approach two managing internet time consists of several new techniques.

One, designate a block of time to engage in internet frivolity, and firewall it. No stupid internet stuff outside of that block.

Two, conscious clicking. Ask yourself before you click whether this is really necessary.

Three, don't leave the computer on throughout the day. Shut it down. This increases the barrier to entry; if you have to boot up your computer to do something, you begin to ask if it's really worth it.

Four, write better e-mails. If for some reason, you are stuck at your desk with nothing better to do than, catch up with old friends instead. As a result of this blog, I am currently exchanging lovely e-mails with people I haven't spoken to in YEARS. And I'm even going to visit one of them later this month.