
Experiment: Living Without A Home Internet Connection - graeme
http://www.graemeblake.ca/2012/04/07/experiment-living-without-a-home-internet-connection/
======
orofino
While interesting, I have to ask, what makes reading books, watching TV, and
watching movies higher value than whatever it is you're doing on the internet?

I learn about travel, science, technology, and countless other things through
the internet. While not a replacement for real life experiences, I certainly
think it could be considered a high-value experience (personally I think it is
better than TV), perhaps on par with reading books.

Sure, if you're spending all your time playing minecraft online... wait we
have kids building graphing calculators in minecraft, nevermind.

~~~
jaysonelliot
One word: focus.

When you're on the internet, you're engaging in bite-size activities and
constant task switching. Quick, how many tabs do you have open right now?

Until about 1999 or 2000, I accomplished at least four times as much per year
as I do today. Before that time, there either was no Web to putter around on,
or it existed but without the speed and content it has had since then.

Have you ever noticed that your best ideas come when you're in the shower, or
maybe on a long drive alone? It's down to focus, and lack of distractions.

Even if you think you're reading long-form journalism or other content online,
you're most likely doing it in a window of a browser, with visual clutter all
around, from UI elements to menu items to the dock at the bottom of the
screen. They're all subtle cues to your mind to stay alert for extra input,
and not get too zoned in on whatever you're reading. Not to mention the
amazing amount of visual crap most webpages surround their content with.

There's value to the vast amount of information available online, but you have
to be discerning. Information for the sake of information is not always worth
the mental and time tradeoffs we make for it.

~~~
Locke1689
I don't know, it sounds like "I don't have home internet" is more of a stand-
in for "I don't have self control."

If you want to read a book, just get off the computer and read a book.

~~~
wpietri
Ah, the prerogative of youth: assuming that because you don't understand
something, it must be simple. And that anybody who thinks otherwise is just a
fool.

Actually, willpower is a limited resource:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_control#As_a_limited_resou...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_control#As_a_limited_resource)

The people who make the best use of it shape their environments to avoid
temptation:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all)

Exactly as this person did.

~~~
Locke1689
The solution I proposed was perhaps flippant, but not ill-thought out.

I stand by my claim that the fundamental problem that the author has is not
with the Internet, it's with their willpower.

I read the same article as you many years ago when it was first published.

My conclusion, however, was different from yours. You seem to have stopped at
"manipulate your environment to change how you behave." I preferred the
conclusion, "manipulate your environment to change how you think." When I have
distraction problems with the Internet I'll restructure my environment to
provide gratification in different ways. If Internet browsing is rewarding to
me to the point where it causes a distraction it now becomes an effective
reward mechanism. I can make a schedule wherein a certain amount of work is
rewarded with a small amount of Hacker News.

Moreover, the _entire Internet_ isn't to blame for this person's problem, only
a certain set of behavior on the Internet. They describe how slower or less
rich internet didn't present a distraction. Why not cap their connection speed
or disable images, javascript, and sound?

I see many options and "get rid of the Internet" seems the most naive and
harmful in this case.

~~~
wpietri
Actually, I think your "solution" was both flippant _and_ ill-thought out.

"Just read a book" isn't a solution at all. It doesn't work, and it displays
willful ignorance of how willpower works.

I'm glad to see you have now responded with some more nuanced notions, but
your arrogant "duh, he's doing it wrong" tone still grates. In particular, you
assume that he couldn't possibly have thought about the issues you raise.
Maybe if you started with the assumption that he _has_ considered them you'd
get someplace more interesting.

~~~
stephengillie
TFA is basically telling us that the route to success in life is to turn off
one's home internet service so he or she could live as Americans did in 1985;
purporting that way of life to be superior in some way because the occupations
of time used several physical items instead of just a computing device.

.

If you want to read a book, you take a book, open it, and begin reading.

.

If you're still having trouble reading it, maybe you don't actually want to
read it as much as you are telling yourself you do. Be honest with yourself,
listen to yourself, and don't force yourself to be something you're not. If
you can't find some psychological lever to help you begin learning to code, or
learn French, or to stop playing WOW - something important in your life which
makes you want to do this - maybe you should step back and reexamine your life
and priorities.

.

Reading a book shouldn't drain one's willpower; if it is you're doing it
wrong.

~~~
wpietri
TFA is not telling us that. He's just saying he's trying an experiment. And
he's not saying that the physical items are superior. He talks about watching
video and doing email and posting to blogs, so he's obviously ok with virtual
things.

Also, it sounds like he really does want to do the book reading, in that's
what he went and did once he was less distracted. And then tried an experiment
to see how he could bring back more of that.

Also, your "it's just that simple" line is contradicted by a lot of research
on willpower. (Which, hint hint, I linked.) Maybe it really works that way for
you, in which case: bravo, you magnificent alien. But it doesn't work that way
for most people, including the the author of the initial article.

Some books are easy books. Other books are hard, but worth the work. Some
things are quick and easy gratification, but other only pay off after a while.
For humans, at least, one has to set aside the former if you want to pursue
the latter.

------
wpietri
For those looking to try a less drastic version of this, I recommend
LeechBlock:

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/>

It lets you list websites and then set rules around when and how much you can
access them. My current way to set it up: during business hours, I have to
wait 60 seconds to access a distracting website. And by wait, I mean sit there
and stare at the countdown screen; if the window loses focus it cancels the
countdown.

I'm amazed at the number of times a day I try to access something like HN
when, after 5 seconds of thought, I really don't want to.

~~~
RegEx
I've just been using my hosts file for the same effect, but this sound like a
more elegant solution.

~~~
msutherl
I use a combination of SelfControl.app, my hosts file and OpenDNS content
filtering. I need 3 layers of protection.

~~~
RegEx
Actually it's only 2 layers of protection, as SelfControl.app just appends
things to the hosts file.

~~~
msutherl
I'm not entirely sure how it works, but SelfControl is resilient to you
manually editing the host file while it's running. I know it runs a daemon and
I'm not sure if it just keeps the host file updated or if it has a secondary
blocking method.

------
octotoad
I've had some form of Internet connection since ~2000 and up until a few years
ago I never thought I could go without for more than a week or so. In 2010 I
had to cut off my DSL account due to financial reasons. I was offline for
around nine months and in this time I found that, code-wise, I was the most
productive I'd ever been.

When hacking on random stuff while I was online, I'd often find myself
starting off opening a browser to load an API reference manual or something
similar, and before I knew it I was faffing about on something completely
irrelevant. Sometimes it'd be related to the project I was working on (sort of
a Wikipedia effect; you can't stop at just one link) and other times it would
be random crap.

While I was offline, since I was stuck with the basic essentials related to a
particular project (appropriate development packages, documentation etc.), I
found myself not only more focused on the task at hand, but generally more
interested and enthusiastic about the problem I was working on.

I am currently without a home internet connection again, but this time I have
a 'smartphone' that I can tether when necessary. I've noticed having that
option available can be a really bad thing for my productivity. I certainly
benefit from having absolutely no possibility of accessing the internet, as
long as I have all the tools and resources at hand that I need to get the
current job done.

------
djloche
Simply put: the lack of work/life balance due to not setting environmental
boundaries at the onset of self employment had destroyed your productivity
within both work and life.

I suggest continuing to work from an office of some sort - be it the coffee
shop, a co-working space, or renting a room or desk in someone else's office,
so you can continue to separate your work and life environments.

You can turn on the internet at your apartment, but place priority in what you
actually want to do outside of work by granting those things greater space in
that environment. If you like to read, have books easily accessible for you to
pick up and read. Get a nice chair/couch for you to sit and enjoy reading.
Build a nice wall of bookshelves for your books. Join book clubs, arrange
lunch/dinner with people who also like to read, etc.

Make your priorities visual.

------
evincarofautumn
Fascinating, but perhaps not for everybody. I can waste a fair amount of time
online, but most often when I do it’s because of a general lack of motivation
due to a depressive mood. If I didn’t have the internet at such times, I would
just sit around and mope. At least on HN I can learn things.

~~~
jaysonelliot
I think you and I have very similar situations. My time wasted online is often
for the exact same reasons.

Before the internet was such a large part of my life, that time was spent
writing in my notebook or reading books (somehow watching TV just made me feel
even worse). A lot of that time was also "wasted," but some of it was really
valuable time that I spent getting to know myself and my own thoughts better.

One thing wasting time online has never done for me is lift my depression. The
only thing that ever does that for me is getting out of my environment and
wandering around outside.

~~~
evincarofautumn
Agreed. Putzing around online is a symptom of an underlying problem, and I
know it’s time to get up, make a sandwich, take a walk, whatever. Knowing
that, lately it’s been a lot easier to stay motivated.

------
devinfoley
I lived without home Internet for about a year in 2002 when I lived on a boat.
I eventually got a wireless 56k connection. I spent time at coffee shops and
wardriving for Internet. I don't recommend it.

~~~
jodrellblank
Why don't you recommend it? What particularly did you miss and what didn't you
miss?

What do you regret having now, but you put up with because it's worth the
trade-off?

------
smsm42
Looks like the same problems people have with eating: consuming a lot of
useless stuff, not consuming enough of proper stuff, hurting their
(intellectual) health by that. I wonder how soon people will start selling
internet diets - some software that installs on your computer and controls
your browsing and counts intellectual calories and vitamins for you. I'm sure
there are apps like this already but not a major business like diets... So if
you want to be a millionaire, make a startup doing this.

------
graeme
Wow, I didn't expect my first submission to hit the front page. Should have
done that third edit I decided to forego.

There are some good replies here. The only point I want to make is that the
people accusing me of lacking self-control are 100% correct.

I disconnected my internet not because I see no value in it (far from it), but
rather because unfettered access was taking too much time away from other
things that I value.

Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm quite capable of avoiding the internet. I
wrote ~350,000 (profitable) words last year. I got lots of other things done,
too.

But, I had to use up willpower at all times to avoid the easy pleasure of
surfing the web. It was unpleasant.

Most of my work is on the computer - I'm no technophobe. It's so much easier
to use my computer now that it mostly does work related things unless I'm in a
cafe.

I readily admit that some people may have no trouble with the internet and
self-control. That's great - you have all the advantages of limitless
information, and none of the disadvantages of distraction.

Many people, unfortunately, are more like me. The internet is valuable for us,
but a potential pitfall. I'm hardly the first to point this out, pg had an
essay on point.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html>

I'd be interested to know if he ever figured out a workable system. He posted
somewhere on here that his dual computer system eventually broke down.

------
thebigredjay
I have been considering making the same leap.

For me it's about forcing some boredom into your life. With the Internet and
TV I feel hyper stimulated all the time. To find entertainment I merely
collapse into my chair, click a few buttons, and begin passively consuming.

Without something neurotically occupying my attention (ie internet) I quickly
become bored. When bored I then proceed to think through everything I could
possibly do, prioritize the ideas, and choose one to act upon. Even if I end
up watching a television show the important thing is that I chose to watch
that specific show rather than passively accepting whatever was being played
at the time. I have not had TV in a long time, so that's not a problem, but
whenever I've momentarily had no internet I find I eat better, exercise more,
have a cleaner house, and knock more things off of my to do lists.

It's not that I want to go without internet, it's just that I do not want the
internet at home. I've been without it before and really enjoyed the
experience, now I just have to make the leap of canceling internet completely.

~~~
pyre
I'd say that it's less about the Internet at home and more about the 'always
on' aspect.

You could try emulating the 'dial-up experience' by forcing some sort of
'connection ritual' that you must go through to get the Internet. An example
setup (assuming you only have a laptop) could be to disable wifi, and force
yourself to plug in an ethernet cable every time. With this setup you can
still have Internet for things like an HTPC, for your television while still
having the 'no Internet' on your computer experience.

~~~
thebigredjay
Absolutely. I have a wireless button on my laptop and I generally disable
wireless when I want to get work done. I like the idea of a physical ritual, I
kind of want to build a big cartoony internet switch now. It's like forcefully
inserting a brief moment of reflection before you use the internet.

------
AndrewNoNumbers
Very interesting post. The biggest thing it’s gotten me to think about is
whether we’ve been using the internet “wrong” the past two decades. Maybe at
some point in the future (or the present, for this blogger), the internet will
be confined to something we only use at a certain time of the day. Or
something else will supplant the internet as our leisure activity.

I’ve actually been running similar experiments, and you can start trying this
in a much easier way than cancelling your internet.
<http://ndrw.me/2012/03/01/afternoon-refresh/>

------
aaronjbaptiste
Interesting perspective. The problem is what you're spending time online
doing. If you're looking at cute cats or on facebook, it's likely you're
wasting time. I would also bet that lots of time is spent procrastinating. On
the flip side I find time away from the computer to be highly unproductive.
It's good if you need time away to relax, but overall there's alot of time
wasted drinking beer, socialising etc. It's all about balance and getting
important stuff done.

~~~
evincarofautumn
On-computer and off-computer time are equally (un)productive. I like to spend
a long time thinking about a problem without writing any code, then get it all
out in one go as a foundation to build on; something like the Feynman
Algorithm. And time spent socialising is only wasted if you don’t make the
most of it. Like you said, it’s important to enjoy yourself and maintain a
good work–life balance—otherwise you’ll just be unproductive _and_ depressed.

------
lionhearted
I've had this a couple times in my life. The two nicest things about it are --

1\. A consistent bedtime and better sleep. I usually read books before
bedtime, and crashed out earlier.

2\. When you do get the internet in your home again inevitably, you appreciate
it more. Seriously, it's an amazingly powerful thing, the internet. But we
spend so much time drowning in it that we often don't notice/appreciate it
enough.

------
TwiztidK
Since leaving home to go to University I've completely stopped watching TV and
that has increased my free time by quite a bit. Unfortunately, I would have a
pretty hard time living somewhere without internet, mostly because I don't own
a phone (cell phone or landline) so email and Skype are the only methods I
have for communicating with the outside world.

------
jambo
I'm doing a light version of this starting in a few weeks. I've canceled my
home internet, but I still have my Nexus S & access from work and cafes. It
was motivated in part by the ridiculously poor level of service/price in my
area, and part by the same notion that I might be happier without it.

Sadly, I can't easily travel to Cuba for this experiment (US American).

------
lordlicorice
> Encryption (for secure banking): Witopia.

I think your bank is doing something wrong if you need a secure VPN to do
online banking.

~~~
jonmb
I think he's using the VPN because he's accessing the banking site through an
open wireless Internet connection at his coffee shop. I don't know enough
about wireless security to say if the VPN is protecting him or not, though.

~~~
lordlicorice
The encryption should be between your browser and the bank's servers, not
between your network driver and the VPN provider. You do this with TLS/SSL
(it's that little lock icon or security information panel you see when you're
at an <https://> URL).

~~~
jonmb
Ah, I understood that SSL encrypts the data, but I always assumed there was
still a risk of it being intercepted (before encryption) if I was on an open
WiFi network.

~~~
graeme
OP here, that was my worry. But, I admit I didn't thoroughly look into whether
bank-side encryption eliminates my risk from a public network.

Maybe it does, but there are enough other unencrypted sites that I'd rather
have the VPN.

------
joeyh
Since 2000, I've spent half my time in locations with only dialup internet
access at home. While I can still get distracted by Hacker News (as I just now
have when I had meant to come out and enjoy an hour of spring twilight), it
does cut down on the distraction level significantly.

My laptop is entirely self-contained, with everything from mail archives to my
blog in git (and large files managed by git-annex). So when the net does go
out I can easily not notice for an hour or two. Or, this winter, when my solar
power reserves got really low and I couldn't afford to run the internet
connection after dark, it was not a big deal.

In time periods when I have broadband at home, I have considered putting a
dialup throttle on it, but could never quite bring myself to do it. :)

------
andrewpi
It's an interesting experiment, but I don't see how you avoid using your
iPhone to waste time in the same way as you would on your laptop. (unless you
cancel your data plan as well)

~~~
biftek
Have you tried browsed the Internet for extended periods of time on an iPhone?
It's painful. The mobile experience still sucks for 90% of the web, bandwidth
is limited and slow, and don't even imagine having all your standard tabs
open. Mobile web is still very much broken.

I pointed it out earlier but like the author also don't have home Internet.
It's pretty easy to avoid grabbing the iPhone and opening up safari for
anything more than reading a few blog posts.

------
biftek
For what it's worth, I've not had Internet at home for about a month. I still
have access at work, so not entirely the same situation, but it is nice not
having the vice at home. And like the author have filled the rest of my time
productively.

I recommend anyone give it a go, and if you haven't get rid of your tv too.

------
munyukim
I agree with author,you can still accomplish a lot of things with limited
access.I just launched a website <http://www.mixdem.com> from internet cafe in
Zimbabwe , Africa.

------
ctdonath
Simple matter of self control. Something isn't right when you have to visit a
communist dictatorship to have that control inflicted on you because the
source of distraction is brutally oppressed there.

~~~
jodrellblank
When you say it's a "simple" matter, and "something isn't right", why don't
people "simply" fix it? What isn't right?

I claim your dismissal of it as simple isn't right.

------
shasta
Maybe "I don't even have Internet access" will be the new "I don't even own a
TV."

~~~
toyg
More like "I don't even have a phone". Internet is bidirectional, a TV is just
a _receiver_. The difference is huge.

I do live without a TV quite happily, but I could never live without at least
one bidirectional medium. It would mean returning to XIX-century communication
methods, which were way too time-expensive for modern life; for example, I'd
have to get dressed and leave the house every time I want to communicate, find
a shared communication device (public phone, post office, etc) and then have
to put up with contention issues and delays (wait for my turn, get a bad line
etc) on which I have no control.

OP does that -- he's relying on shared wifi at his coffee shop. Which means
he's putting up with slow speed and the impossibility to download large chunks
of data -- unless he's being a dick or his coffeeshop is run by Cisco, he
won't be able to get that 600mb Linux distro or those 6 Gb of Oracle
installers, ever. And the day someone decides to be a dick, good luck
downloading your email while the pipe is saturated by Mr. Streetpirate
uploading HD movies from the safety of an anonymous IP.

He might be happy with that, I don't doubt it, but his lifestyle is not for
everyone.

------
ulisesrmzroche
I feel that you jumped to conclusions in blaming the internet for not keeping
up with your reading list, to be honest. Why should anyone be judged on how
they choose to waste their time?

~~~
AndrewNoNumbers
I feel that you jumped to conclusions by believing giving up the internet
doesn't have other effects on your mind and daily functions (not just a matter
of using time!).

------
arkas
Internet is became too important for us. So it' not problem of using it, it's
how we us it. Most people use it for social networks, porn and other
irrelevant stuf.

------
paulhauggis
I can see cutting cable (which I did a year ago and it's been great). But, I
need the Internet.

I run an online business and many times things come up in the middle of the
night. I also communicate with most of my friends and family though email or
Facebook.

You just need to have some self-control. It's not easy, but it can be done.

------
sparknlaunch
Great idea and can relate after two months without proper internet
availability. I spend so much time just surfing and having a smart phone
doesn't help. I don't have the self discipline just to stop. Maybe ISP s can
offer a service tolock your connection at certain times off the day?

