Logging Off

by Nick Spalding

These do not look nondescript. Not in the slightest. In fact, if there’s some great universal scale on which nondescript is at one end, then these offices must be at the other. They are superdescript. Megadescript. There’s so much descript going on here, you could bottle it and sell it at a car boot sale.

‘Digital Detoxing and You’ might as well be called ‘Say Goodbye to Everything That Makes Life Have Any Meaning Whatsoever, You Sad Little Twat’.

Back inside, I decide to make myself an angry cup of coffee. This is much like a normal cup of coffee, only it contains twice the amount of coffee, three times the amount of sugar and a quarter of the amount of milk.

That’s what Fergus does. He opens people up like he’s a psychological can opener. Gets them to spill their guts all over the place. The reason he’s such a good journalist is that he knows that the real story is always about the person – never the marrow.

‘They don’t look like they’re having that much fun to me. Those two girls in the corner could be talking to one another, but instead they’re hunched over their phones. That old boy in the other corner is clearly having problems trying to get his stupid phone to work in the first place, and matey-boy on the iPad there might be smiling, but there’s a haunted look in his eyes that speaks volumes.’

So, what’s your bloody problem? You don’t need the Internet. You don’t need social media. You got on fine without it before it existed, so why can’t you cope without it now . . . especially just for sixty days?’

‘Yes. That’s it. I don’t want to fail.’ ‘So it’s easier to not try?’

‘You’ll live with the pain and discomfort, just because you can cope with them better than the idea that you failed at something.’

wanted ‘Lucas La Forte’ to be real, because I suppose he gave me something to aspire to.

I’m not quite sure what a harbinger is, but this crow certainly is one. It’s full to brimming with pure, untainted harbinge.

That’s the thing about modern dating. You go in armed with a lot of information about the other person, as they no doubt do with you. It’s robbed the experience of some of its mystery.

It’s plainly clear that living a life without technology is not an easy thing to do. The world around me is so geared towards using it, that attempting not to leads down paths of disaster and weirdness – no matter how hard you try to avoid them. This is an unpleasant realisation. I knew I was addicted to the online world, but I had no idea to what extent the actual world was so reliant on it.

Technology has a way of regimenting your existence, which only becomes truly apparent once you have to do without it. It’s almost as if all that reliance on computers starts to turn you into a bit of a computer yourself.

Feeling free does not also stop you from feeling lost. The two emotions can sit beside each other quite comfortably, it turns out.

If anything, today’s jaunt around the sandstone city has made things more difficult. Because now I know that without all that digital claptrap, I can live a more spontaneous, interesting life.

‘Without you, I’d never have dared give it a go. I needed your story to show me that I had a problem, and that I needed to do something about it.’

must get out. I must run away. These people are clearly demons from hell disguised as my friends – bent on putting me through the torments of Hades until my soul explodes or my bottom falls off, whichever comes first.

It turns out public speaking is quite good fun – as long as you’re saying things that people want to hear.

Less than three minutes ago, I was having a lovely daydream about what might transpire with Grace here in this flat tonight. Now I am watching a pug dressed as a blue wizard shag my footstool. If anyone doubts that the universe is a place of complete chaos and total uncertainty, this jolly well proves it, as far as I’m concerned.

A tuba is not a thing that can ever pass unnoticed when it is played in public.

There are good reasons for having an online lifestyle. That much is very clear to me – despite all of the problems it can throw up as well.

‘One of the worst things about that tech obsession of yours was the way it made you think you had to share everything, with everyone – all of the time. That’s social bloody media for you – it’s turned us all into people who think we shouldn’t keep things private any more. And that doing so is wrong!’

‘You’re not required to let people into every aspect of your life, Andy!

‘Living a happy life is about knowing how much of yourself you want to let people in on.’

Deep down, I don’t think I am a coward. Which is something of a shame, as cowards get to run off and hide, somewhere nice and quiet with a decent Internet connection.

‘You don’t need to listen to anybody else to know what’s right for you. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anyone! You shouldn’t look to me for answers . . . any more than you should look to the people you’ve followed on social media in the past.’

All you can do is give your best advice to people and let them make their own choices.

Because logging off isn’t something you should only do once. It’s something you should do every single day.