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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trVzyG4zFMU
I %HESITATION I did I left the internet for an entire year I was twenty six years old and %HESITATION whose may first two thousand and twelve and I've I've pulled the plug and there were a lot of reasons %HESITATION but the main reason is probably that I was twenty six years old and I I you know I had to have life figured out and I was
really overwhelmed and it was a bit of a crisis and it just felt like everything was too much and I couldn't win and and the internet kept on coming in most more emails you can't you can't win against your email inbox because the moment you hit archive on the very last one you're gonna get a new email and you can't win on Twitter because there's there's
so much there so much Justin Bieber to talk about and this is you know it and I just felt this in a really overwhelming very personal way that the internet was sort of defeating me and suppressing me %HESITATION I reports all my entire livelihood for the internet I I was twelve years old when I started using the internet %HESITATION contract sickness and and it by far
probably use the internet for the majority of my waking hours since then I was not a web designer as a teenager I started writing about technology as a journalist when I was about twenty and so it's all I've ever really known I don't know what life is like you know without the internet without being constantly connected without you know an email inbox I do remember a
time before Twitter but it's really hazy and the and so I I I I I also have this desire to get some stuff done I I I wanted to do some personal study from reading at some writing projects that I was putting off and I figured if I quit the internet you which is using all of my time I would have unlimited free time to to
accomplish things that I I desire to accomplish and the it's a good piece of equip the unit and then the question that I was kind of asking %HESITATION beyond my just my personal goals was how does the internet use to me and how do I use the internet and that's it's you know at what point are my decisions and my goals dictating my behavior on the
internet them and what point are the that that that apps and that the people in the process is and just how the internet is the medium itself how's that dictating my behavior on how that my behavior %HESITATION in the mid nineties %HESITATION Nicholas Negroponte who is there of the founder of wired magazine and that T. media lab he wrote in on them web was very early
at this point so the web surfing isn't really a fit and it's kinda found it we can't we can't keep this up this isn't really how life gets done %HESITATION yeah pretty soon there's gonna be bought from the go out on the internet for you and the final of the information and you can get back to being a productive adult and maybe the kids will have
time to surf the internet but that's not gonna be us we can't do that were productive members of society and it and he was totally wrong with who should enough for serving that's what we do when we're using the internet %HESITATION eh yeah but in in a sense he was right that it's except for a select few people are and I know I'm not included in
this when I'm using the internet you know outside in a little bit of research I'm not really typically being productive least that's how I felt I wasn't accomplishing the things like I said I wanted to write I want to read I was a real accomplishing those things when I was clicking on links when I was tweeting when I was on read it you know it when
I was absorbing this vast amazing incredible sea of information I was more often than not being distracted by instead of a built up by and and I didn't feel like I was being productive I wish there was those bots that use the internet for me flight so I didn't have to use it %HESITATION and I contrast the way I use the internet with with %HESITATION how
my parents use the internet I do think there's a difference there where they are able to use it more as a utility it's a very useful incredible invention for them they they think go on Amazon and they buy a thing and I check their email and they send email to me asking me why I have emailed them recently and %HESITATION you know my mom's on Twitter
now my dad is Instagram but really it's very tiny fraction of their life and then they get back to doing the things that need to be done and for me because I'm maybe because I grew up with it or because I'm a nerd or or or I have a low level stuff control my life with the internet and other things maybe happen in the margins %HESITATION
and you know I was you know I'd be looking down on my phone and and then I look up and there's a person still there although that's good and I look back on my phone and I'm back in my world where I belong where I understand and and what I what I know and where I'm I'm I'm capable so when I left the internet %HESITATION I
felt this amazing sense of freedom I quit you know texting in addition to the internet so I wasn't getting any email people are checking my email for me I had no connection to the internet and %HESITATION a I was so free I was so happy I was high on life in it everything smelled better and Titus given my seventh so so good and that that sensation
I had it's probably going to fifteen year olds like you can't tell me what to do it and I you know like I I my life is mine down I get to make the choices and that email that's incoming doesn't get to mess with my plans for today %HESITATION it was he was so wonderful and I experienced new sensations that I never have before or down
in a long time and one of those was bored just incredible intense boredom %HESITATION and %HESITATION I don't know if you've ever been bored before it was kind of a new thing for me I'll describe the sensation it's some you're not doing anything right now you don't have anything to do and there's nothing at arm's length that can fix that but you know when you have
the internet the moment you're kind of thinking about maybe being bored you can grab your phone any slight to unlock and now you have an entire world of information and entertainment right in front of you and maybe you don't want that right now but you're not bored trust me because I got bored and it's very different thing and and it it's arm something up to creative
people talked about for a long time it's this time that you you know some people called meditation but you can you solitude and you can you have a space to think and be creative and also found it was a time to actually decide what I actually wanted to do it for of taking the path of least resistance but I also had very different interactions with people
are and this is something that's been talked a little bit so many people so so much about you know it's Facebook really bring us together with people or is that are we just hiding our group our computers pretending that we have friends and and I I what I found is that without the internet I I could be with the person in a much more intense and
much more personal way enough of those are words people use like that was intense host intense hang out with you with scary take even on the phone I was scary maybe maybe this wasn't a compliment but I I really I really valued my ability to to talk with people in a way it wasn't just that I did have a on the phone that could distract me
right then I didn't have my mental cycles thinking about you know or my email stacking up somewhere in my missing something on Twitter you know stuff did I forget the check in at this place on foursquare %HESITATION you know I didn't have that distract him and allow me view much more in the moment and my my sister told me that I can more emotionally available %HESITATION
that she really known me throughout her life and now I had a conversation with a friend I've known for years that was so we just got to a deeper level than we've ever gotten I just treasure that so much %HESITATION and then there was the flip side of the thing boredom is awesome if you do something good with it but it's not often if you just
play video can and that's what I started doing I got a flare ups I'm sorry I'm twenty years old for him and I just stupid and I played so much video games through the year and I would that became that thing I didn't know about it right first idea actually play alone vegans for quit the internet but it it became the thing that was really easy
was right at arm's length and I would grab the controller in an you know get rid of that sometimes terrifying feeling of boredom and I wasted so much time I can be a kid who took a the other thing I have with people is that while when I was with them it was really great and it was really personal stop hanging out with people as often
%HESITATION I kind of got disconnected from my social circle if deftly very difficult keep in touch with people up stay in my family's kind of all over the country but even people in my city you know I I'd miss I miss the email I missed the Facebook and by you know I I I I I forgot that that movie was coming out this weekend and you
know you miss a couple of those and then you kind of miss more more and and early on a lot of my loneliness would prompt me to to go out and and reach out to people along call people on the phone which they hate hate when I call them if they would learn much prefer attack specially for making plans but I had the I had the
stick by my principles and I'd call them and and they didn't want to hang out or it was too late and and and in that lonely sort of built on itself and I became very withdrawn support the one hang out with people for for a week and I I just came out of sync with my social circle like I wasn't on the jokes I didn't know
the lingo and I haven't seen the same movies and that was that was really tough Tom but I came back on the internet that was one of the most intense experiences of all because he was so overwhelming I think maybe we forget how skilled we are using the internet to how much of your brain that requires you then I train myself through this year of of
of you know engaging with me number one I did a time or one video came at a time at least but you know I I'd been working up to reading some books a little bed and and I was really into that you know capture that one big idea and one big book can and how great I'll get that wasn't talking with one person at a time
and also then at ten browser tabs and twenty people were telling me which links I have to go to because I miss them during the year when I was gone and I had my phone and my laptop on my tablet and was so much I I would literally be can the panic that first day I was back throughout that week because very stressed %HESITATION about a
week in up from the back on the internet I was at my coffee shop as going through email I have about twenty thousand under a emails when I got I forgot to put auto responded by email and so the tip if you guys are gonna leave the other heads %HESITATION and my sister came and as you want to talk about our day and and I I
I all the Arabs listening in kind of but I also think about what was going on in my inbox and and I kind of started over my laptop a little more because I'm not a long to what she was saying this is that while the wall is back up and it's this sensation she'd had the feel with this whole her whole life that I am plugged
into this computer and she wants to talk to me and I'm not really a hundred percent available maybe ten percent maybe even ninety percent but I'm not a hundred percent available and I close the last time I yeah I didn't want to be that person anymore but I you know I I missed the least that moment %HESITATION when I I got back to it maybe should
know this about me I I wrote for the technology public is call the bird to help found it actually launched six months before I left the internet which is probably will ironic but %HESITATION I %HESITATION I I was trying to get back to work I wrote about my experiences for the publications I was able have a job publishing articles for the internet what without having the
internet I'd hand them a thumb drive and they put my stories up but I wanted to try to earn it back a little bit into some really good work I I started doing a story my first month back on Google glass so I went from no internet to having the internet literally on my face for a week you know learning this device and I and I
got so into it and and and I was finally kind of getting some productivity back in learning to manage all this multi pronged attack of the internet and I had a Skype call scheduled with my brother and sister in law and I haven't seen them visually and and I haven't seen their kids you know probably six months and I didn't really want to do it I
don't know what it is about that the somehow that thing that you were really aren't the most into it's just a random link on the internet stopping me from wanting to connect with somebody that's that important to me but I I I did I set down my project and I Skype with them and my my niece played me %HESITATION twinkle twinkle little star on the violence
is learning the violin %HESITATION is a very slow and this and that is first he was beautiful and and C. N. N. and my nephew had both Britain original songs that they'd written in crayon on pieces of paper and they held up to the camera and they saying them for me her song with called Horsey ride his song was called helicopter stop and I was such
a precious thing in the end and that it's not just that I almost missed that out on it then I missed out on that my whole year of being off the internet Anna Anna and it's if Kerry valuable often think and and and I did I don't want to take that for granted anymore %HESITATION I could cut a lucky when it when I came back to
the internet of contra figure out what I'm gonna do next and the idea popped into my head which I wish it occurred to me earlier but it finally did occur to me that I'd spend entire year focused on myself trying to fix myself and improve myself and become a better me and educated them and things like that and really if maybe I should spend some of