Ben's Collection of Everything Awesome on the Net.

“Hey everyone, this is the overview of my ‘Month offline’ which I did in March 2011.” – Ben

Chuck & Beans comic

The idea/concept

Whilst I’ve already done a post on how this idea came up, and outlined the terms in my ‘last day online’ on the 28th Feb, I’ll run over all this quickly for you now.

I live a very technological life. I have an iPhone (which usually knows more about what I’m doing than I do), I have all the social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, DeviantArt, etc etc). I write my own blog and contribute to others. It all got to the point where I was wondering how much this stuff is distracting me and if I could even disconnect from it all if I wanted to.

The terms of the disconnect:

• No internet usage
• No social networks (facebook, twitter, blog etc).
• No iPhone usage
• No Kindle
• No “Next-Gen” videogames – no PS3/360/Wii etc.
• No online gaming.
• No watching downloaded TV shows/Movies.

Exceptions to the terms:

• Work-related internet usage (specifically work related definitions and spell checking etc. This means that no DJing music!
• SNES gaming will be allowed but only in a social aspect to help my Sister and GF complete difficult levels in mario (no more than 10mins of consecutive playing).
• My blog will automatically publish content throughout the month of march, which will also result in automated twitter posts. This is fully automated and I won’t be able to touch any of these until after March.

Logistics of being offline:

• Swapping my iPhone 4′s micro-sim to a normal sim card (so I could use an old Nokia Phone).
• Changing the passwords for my ‘big 4′ logins and giving them to my gf.
• Friends and co-workers watching out for me being online.

What was it like to be offline?

This is the obvious question and it wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be. Many people stated I wouldn’t be able to do it (wouldn’t last an hour, a day, a week etc), but I managed the full 31 days. I found it interested to be forced to use more archaic forms of communication/media to keep myself entertained.

What did you enjoy about the experience?

I loved having a better idea of what was going on because I was forced to be actively aware of my schedule and income etc. I knew the date every day, I knew how much money was in my bank account, I knew what I was doing for the week.

What did you dislike about the experience?

Not being able to vent anger on Call of Duty. Not being able to pass time reading random blogs/items. Having to pay for magazines and content I KNEW I had sitting in my Google Reader account. I also didn’t like the aspect of not being able to organise my life online – work rosters, banking, movie tickets… these are all online now-a-days.

Newspapers suck. Whilst I enjoyed the broadening of my current affair knowledge, newspapers themselves are a cumbersome and idiotic medium. The one thing I hated more than anything was having a lot of “dead-time” waiting for trains, buses, bookings etc where I normally would have something to read instantly. If I didn’t have a book or magazine handy… I was stuck. Also newspapers aren’t ideal for busy trains/buses… I don’t know how old people use them.

What have you learnt from this experience? (this is for Allo).

I have learn that the things I previously thought were important are actually just distractions. I don’t need to be posting things online all the time. I also learnt that in the end, the internet and technology isn’t an enemy… you just need to be aware of how much you use/abuse it. Sitting back and watching people play with iPhones over dinner highlights this point.

Did you ever go crazy?

Of course. I actually went off the deep end and hand wrote my closest friends letters and mailed them out. It was an interesting thing to do, and I learnt that writing letters, whilst a thoughtful and nice gesture, is a pain in the ass.

Was this for charity?

Yes and No. It was a personal challenge. I didn’t set out to raise money for this, but I didn’t turn people away from donating. I decided that the QLD flood appeal would be the best one to support (this was prior to NZ & Japan). If you want the donation page is still up and running:

http://give.yasirelief.com.au/ben_offline

What was it like coming back online?

Awesome. I was ready for it for the last 72 hours. I was bored and looking forward to reading everything that was happening on the online-world. My friends were posting interesting stuff on my facebook wall daily and I was keen to see what they had put up. I was also ready to have my iPhone back. Old Nokias aren’t very fun.

What was the damage of coming back online?

After being away from the net for a month I had:

• 70+ emails
• 42 apps on iPhone that needed to be updated
• 8,000-10,000 new Google Readers items (which end up being content on my blog)
• 12 blog comments
• “49″ facebook notifications < which I must point out is only because facebook grouped all the “this person has posted a link to your wall” each day. I’m going to guess that the true number was something like 200 notifications (I’m not counting all my facebook email notifications to find out).

Blog comments

gmail Inbox

Facebook

Google Reader (300-500 new items/day)

So now what?

I’m back, I’m online, I’m posting new content and answering comments. I’m currently playing catchup to get through all those Google Reader items and spent 2.5 hours going through all the facebook posts on the 1st of April.

I’m happy that my ‘revised’ image posting method was received well by everyone. You might have noticed I have been posting 2-3 items per day and have removed the “collections” in favour of single images. This speeds up my posting process, makes it easier for me, and means my categories make a bit more sense if you are browsing specific things.

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