When the internet also goes out to lunch
No internet, especially when you work in cyberspace, is very inconvenient. My recent forced offline times have made me think about how reliant we have become on the internet.
For the last few weeks my laptop’s wireless internet goes down for about half an hour, just after lunch time, a couple of times per week. No matter how many times I try to reconnect, no connection is available, even though I had an apparently stable connection just moments ago.
Recently, colleagues and I were talking about the days before cellphones, all-day television broadcasts and mainstream internet.
In those days, lunch hours at offices were spent catching up with the latest news via your favourite daily newspaper or gossiping with fellow office-bound colleagues outside the building or at the cafeteria.
These days, it’s spent catching up on facebook news or tweeting whatever you’re having for lunch. Office gossip (or any gossip for that matter) is mostly spread online via social media or a quick whatsapp to someone across the room.
As I usually have facebook, hootsuite (twitter scheduling app), my newspapers’ websites and a word document or two open at any given time, having no internet connection is more than a slight bother.
I take these offline opportunities to complain/chat to a co-worker, take a walk outside for some fresh air or go fill up my water bottle. Since research has indicated that we should take regular breathers from sitting in front of the computer, I guess the internet being down can be a good thing too.
About halfway into the most recent forced offline time, I start to wonder whether we (society as a whole) shouldn’t have regular breaks from our online lives. I feel like some people get so connected to their online personas and activities that they never notice what’s going on in real life.
Maybe it would be a good idea to start small and ban technology from the dinner table or during family time in the evenings or weekends. This will give us all more time to improve our relationships and take an active interest in others.
Maybe after a while I’ll even start to appreciate the times that my internet goes out to lunch.
Does your family have a ban on technology at certain times? Let me know in the comments section below or on the Hazyview Herald facebook page.
