There is a certain irony about announcing the fact that your backing yourself off from the internet...on a personal website that your yourself are updating. So I can’t help but feel that the need to clarify my thought process behind this. While I am loath to disclose my dwelling and everything in it, something that I have noticed is that I almost never use the amenities that I have in it and tend to just veg out on my sofa and either watch Youtube video’s or read things that don’t really affect me in any personal way.
Unfortunately, unlike the 1990s were the general person could get away with doing everything purely offline though the mail and have a job that doesn’t require a smart-phone to keep. We live in the year of our lord 2024 were not having a smartphone and an internet connection requires a large amount of work to pull off and maintain, additionally in some cases, impossible. So rather than eliminate the internet all together, I’m going to add some conditions to this to ensure that I am off this digital, but necessary crack for the longest amount of time that I physically can.
Unfortunetly, my job requires that I have a smartphone due to it’s internal communications using the Microsoft Teams app, and because of the fact that it uses Microsoft Authenticator to use as a 2FA for the work. Additionally my job is highly monotonous and repetitive and while I could get a Sony Walkman to use as my music player with a Bluetooth dongle to make this digital disconnection more complete, and might do so in the future. Being at work is going to be my exception to the no internet rule with a few more proviso’s
This smartphone that I am bringing to work is explicitly not going to have a sim card in it, I have bought myself a dumbish flip-phone that I am explicitly using for calling and texting.
My eventual end goal is to completely eliminate my current home internet service, however, this seems unlikely considering how some of my goals contain doing things that absolutely require internet to use, so I think that the next best thing is to basically write reports to myself about it. What I mean is that if I am going to go on the internet for any reason I must fill out a report to myself about why I am doing such a thing, set a time limit for doing said thing. If I am being honest with myself, this is going to be the hardest part of my disconnection with the wider internet. Primarily because it is like having a coke addict live with a 5 pound bag of cocaine inside of there bedroom, It will be very easy to relapse, especially when a lot of programs on my computer are internet dependent in some way shape or form.
I think that the main way I can facilitate this outcome of using the internet as primarily a tool rather than some amusement device is for me to go cold turkey on the entire thing for awhile* (while at home) , then gradually reintroduce myself to it. IE: Unless it is something like updating my website, or vital to my health. I will not use it. Eventually I will begin to use it as my projects progress.
I have already started the process by separating my phone from my smartphone. Additionally I have unpinned my web browser from my toolbar on my computer. While these are small steps. I intend to continue with this project and give periodic updates as things progress.