January 15, 2014 - Written by: Beth Teverson

Red Lightey, No Life-y? The Perils (or Joys) of No Internet

It happened a week ago. There I was casually browsing the interweb (Facebook stalking) when what should happen but a little Digi Dinosaur and a message pops into the centre of the screen: Unable to Connect to the Internet. What do you mean? I can’t look at the next picture along of him and his new girlfriend? But it could’ve been the best one!

(Image via)

Now, this didn’t come as a surprise at first. The internet connection in my house is unstable and prone to little tantrums. If you live somewhere pretty in Cornwall the chances are you have shoddy internet.

I ran downstairs, determined to restart the router and continue my detective work. When I saw it, facing the router my eyes centred upon the red light that flashed mischievously.

‘Oh God,’ thought I, ‘red lightey, NO LIFE-Y.’

And so it began, the endless calls to BT, the relentless renditions of various 70’s classics sung to me as I attempted, phone between shoulder and face to make a cup of tea.

‘Thursday,’ said Gary the plusnet guy after days of calling, ‘Thursday I can get an engineer to you.’

‘But it’s Friday!’ I say, in protest. ‘I won’t have any internet connection for a week!’

‘It’s the floods. Everyone’s got the same problem.’

I sigh and place the phone back on the receiver. Looking my laptop, ‘we shan’t be seeing each other for a while.’

You see, I’ve been without internet before, before I had a job, or I had university or I had a social life. But now, now I was genuinely faced with the prospect of being completely closed off from the rest of the world. It may sound strange to read it but I finally came to understand the well known saying: you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone. I couldn’t search for jobs. I couldn’t look at my bank balance. I couldn’t listen to the music I wanted to. I couldn’t watch the TV I wanted to. AGHHH WHAT HAS MY LIFE COME TO?

However, what stuck in my mind the most was how the internet provides us answers, like, INSTANTANEOUSLY. It’s a directory as well as a, well, a dictionary. It’s a social hub as well as a shopping centre. It’s a cinema as well as a debating hall as well as a newspaper and in this day and age is it bad to rely on it?

Although it was difficult at first, I found myself adapting pretty quickly. I used the local library’s internet for really important things like Facebook stalking- I mean job applications – but otherwise steered clear of it. After a few days I actually almost forgot.

As a generation, I think we are particularly at the mercy of this thing, what do we call it? FOMO? Having our lives on constant display and being fed information from other people can often seem a relentless burden. I have often found myself getting all hot and bothered and that little voice in my little head saying:

‘Look at all the amazing things they’re doing, they’re having so much fun, and they’re really making the most of life.’

Which ultimately leads to:

‘I’m not doing that, they have such a better life than me, I’m so boring, my life doesn’t seem as fun as that, I HATE MY LIFE.’

And I have to admit I have found it quite refreshing to slow my life down. The internet seems to sell us the idea that we must live in fast forward in order to make the most of it. We are the generation with an ability to do anything we want, to know anything we want, to be whoever we want, but that’s no good if you don’t have time to breathe.

The internet is a gift. There’s no question about that but use it wisely. I still haven’t got it back. In fact, I’m sat in Tavistock library right now with the oldies, all of who grew up without internet – and they didn’t do too bad, right?!?