Salvatore Iovene

Last weekend I happened to be completely off the network. We somehow managed to forget to pay a couple of DSL bills (now set up to be paid automatically), and the ISP “cut the wires”. Staying off the Internet provided loads of benefits. Let’s see.

1. More time with the loved one. Of course I managed to spend more time with my loved one, cook together, watch a movie, just sit watching the telly and talking.
2. Health benefits. I felt overall more relaxed, and my eyes felt much better. Especially because the previous 2 weeks had been very intense, so my left eye had some red in it.
3. More time to read. With no Internet, I spent a lot of time reading books that were waiting to be finished.
4. More productivity. This sounds crazy, but I did some coding for a project of mine that didn’t really need network access (no need to check API online, no need to talk with a team mate, etc), and without distraction I was able to do more coding than the previous week.
5. More time outside. Not having much better to do, going to the shop to fetch food didn’t really feel like wasted time.
6. More TV. Oh wait, this is not a benefit at all, is it?
7. Less IRC. When I could connect to my running GNU/Screen session which was holding my IRC client in my office computer, I found out all the old messages. And that I missed the chance to buy tickets for a gig I wanted to go to.
9. Less Usenet. Do you think I cought up with all the threads? Of course I had to go for “mark all as read” and forget it.
10. Less RSS. My Google Reader had the infamous 100+ count of news… but I didn’t give up and managed to go through all of them.

What did I found out?
Well, nothing new, really. I already know I was addicted to IRC, RSS and USENET! But of course this break reminded me that I can do perfectly fine without.

Conclusion
I will probably spend more weekends off the net. Not.

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