Unplug: What’s the Longest You’ve Gone Sans Internet?

Let’s limit the timeframe of this question to the past two years. So, one more time: what’s the longest you’ve gone without Internet?

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I know!

I’m still thinking about it too!

Which leads me to believe we’re officially on a spectrum, folks. Yes, sure, it’s not exactly news. The narrative that unfolds behind the phrase “you can’t un-see things” was practically built for the ease with which technology has allowed for us to live, but let’s think about this for a second. Last weekend, I spent, like, four hours without my phone on Saturday. It felt natural and great and almost like time had stopped even though it’s constant and therefore can’t stop so maybe what I really mean is that I felt like I was experiencing time.

This was fantastic for two reasons:

1. Experience is the mother of living, and 2. look at that! I actually had an uninterrupted thought that turned into an opinion, which became a sentence and then a story, all in an era that has bred a generation of half-doing jugglers.

Seeing as the service provider at the MR HQ is Time Warner, we’ve had to become comfortable in knowing that our WiFi goes out more frequently than a college kid on spring break. When it happens we’re left paralyzed and helpless and twiddling our thumbs, like Foster Wallace-ian fish swimming along, completely oblivious to the water.

You know?

So I’m curious — because I think it says a lot about you and me and us and also because it might be a good time to reflect on how much time you’re spending in real time vs. virtual time — what’s the longest you’ve gone without Internet? Was it elective? Did you feel imprisoned? Liberated? Neither?

If I instituted the most paradoxical Man Repeller sanction: a 20 minute time period each day where we all log off and just think about ourselves (and each other!), would you do it? Would you share your findings?

Talk dirty to me.

Feature image by Hannah Kellner

Can’t do a minute without the WiFi? Then embrace the web and shop! Be sure to check out our picks from Resort ’16, all also pulled from said web. If you’re all gung-ho about escaping the w3b, try rekindling your long lost friendship with this dude. 

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