No, I didn’t go cold turkey (though I sometimes have no-Internet days, and I like them).
Back in 2013,
creative agency Mother London deprived five internet addicts of their drug of choice, and filmed the consequences.
Under the watchful eye of psychoanalyst Sarah Hirigoyen and neurologist Alistair Jennings, our five addicts had their internet lives stripped away for a week. Their smart phones were replaced with old text-only mobiles; their social passwords were taken away and changed.
You can see the full results at http://www.nointernetweek.co/
Highlights?
- One person wrote her first-ever letter.
- Another took time to hang out over lunch with a friend.
- A third admitted powerlessness over use of the Internet.
- “A real-world like means so much more.”
- “Sometimes I feel like smashing my phone and the rest of it up, and chucking it in the fire.”
- Somebody used a paper folding map, while another used a map book.
- (speaking about a gift scrapbook) “This feels real and this came with loads of thought.”
- “A lot of my friends are around the corner, but they don’t know where I am.”
- (of friends on Facebook) “When it comes to personal stuff, I don’t know who’s my real friend.”
- (of disconnecting from social media) “I felt like I’ve been unchained from a whole load of noise.”
I didn’t grow up a digital native (but immigration was a smooth process) which is what makes this 13-minute documentary fascinating to me. I couldn’t imagine this level of connectedness in my own life.
Check out the documentary for yourself. What do you think?
http://vimeo.com/81027175