I’m back on the Internet. Did you miss me? Probably not, I suppose.Although actually, I didn’t desert the Internet as intensely as I had planned when I wrote Why I’m Quitting the Internet a couple of months ago. It’s safe to say I used the Internet less than you did though.
So if I didn’t desert the Internet, what did I do?I picked and I chose.I didn’t read any blogs, so no doubt I missed some great ChicagoNow writing. I didn’t visit Longform—one of my favorite websites—so I missed out on some great non-fiction writing.I didn’t read any news. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was. Three or four days passed before I knew the Paris terrorist attacks had happened. I’m fairly out of the loop on the presidential campaign. And I’ll undoubtedly have a moment months from now when I hear that some celebrity died during my Internet blackout and I didn’t know it.I even avoided sports news, which means I’m going to be very surprised to find out where all the baseball free agents ended up. I did hear that the Cubs signed Jason Heyward, and I spent a few minutes looking at his statistics, sure that I must be missing something that explains how he’s worth $23 million per year. It’s still a mystery to me.But perhaps the biggest avoidance during my Internet blackout was Facebook. I went fifty-two days without signing into my Facebook account. Note the careful wording of that sentence. I’d like to emphasize MY Facebook account. I did sign on a few times to a fake account I created years ago, just to check on a few things. That account only has eight or ten friends though, so I couldn’t see much.It’s weird not being on Facebook. The first few days I had to stop myself from signing in every morning since it had become such a part of my daily routine. But soon, I’d practically forgotten about it.And no offense to my Facebook friends, or you, Dear Reader, but I didn’t miss you guys very much.Facebook itself missed me terribly though.A funny thing happens after you leave Facebook for a little while. I think it takes a week or ten days. But at some point, Facebook starts sending you e-mails asking you to sign in again. They’ll tell you how many notifications you have, how many groups you’re part of that have new messages, and when you get a friend request.I guess this makes sense. Social media doesn’t exist if people aren’t being social, so of course Facebook wants its users to participate.I watched in amusement as the number of notifications increased in each day’s e-mail. “Brett, you have 74 new notifications…83 new notifications…96 new notifications.” They really wanted me to login to check those notifications.But when that number reached 99, Facebook stopped counting. For the last month of my Facebook exile, I received a daily message informing me that I had 99 notifications. Facebook can bring together hundreds of millions of people from around the world, but they can’t count past 99.So what did I do on the Internet?I used it for anything work related. I used it to look at travel websites. I played fast and loose with my self-granted personal wellness exemption. I ordered presents. I looked up recipes. Amazon. Maps.Gosh, now that I write it out, it seems like I barely did without the Internet at all. I did though, really!No Facebook, no news, no sports, no podcasts. That’s a lot.And did I learn anything?I learned that even though much of the time Facebook isn’t all that interesting, and I didn’t miss it, I still signed in on the first day after my exile ended. I learned that not knowing what’s going on in the world is a nice feeling. I learned that I don’t need to know what the weather’s going to be everyday.I learned that when I don’t write a blog post for two months, I’m rather rusty and the finished product sucks.And unfortunately, you’ve just learned that, too.But I’m back now. My next entry will be better. I promise.PREVIOUS POST: Why I'm Quitting the InternetIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Vegan for a Month: Lessons Learned+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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