Published August 9, 2010
(Marcello Graciolli/Flickr)
I moved yesterday, from Brookline to Harvard Square. (Ever parallel parked a 14-foot U-Haul truck in Harvard Square? I have.)
I finished unloading late in the day and found myself lying on a bed without sheets, hungry and tired. All I wanted was a few hours of mindless surfing.
But I was off the grid. My Internet connection won’t be flipped on till Tuesday afternoon. My laptop was dead. My iPhone was dead. I found my iPad, 12% battery remaining, and scanned for wireless networks. But they were all password-protected.
Desperate, I actually tried guessing network passwords, which may be a crime. I drove to a closed Starbucks and sat outside, scooter idling, where I could finally check e-mail and read headlines. It wasn’t even that satisfying.
[pullquote author=”jemimah”]”We’re ruled by our computers, not the other way around.”[/pullquote]
It was my accidental Internet sabbath, a phrase coined by the author William Powers, who joined Hubbub last week for a live Web chat. His family unplugs the Internet every weekend.
This morning I couldn’t fire up Globe Reader or open wbur.org, the first two things I do every morning. No Universal Hub, no New York Times, no Twitter. Not that I’d have had time — my dead iPhone is also my dead alarm clock.
Last week, commenter jemimah poignantly noted:
I’ve been marveling for years at the fact that we’re ruled by our computers, not the other way around. All these devices are great and I love ‘em, but they were supposed to give us more “free” time. Instead, we’re never w/o either work or social obligations. We need to teach these machines who’s boss!
Powers said the “itch to connect” is a “perfectly natural human instinct.” We’re biologically programmed to respond to stimuli.
His book, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry,” is a more of a how-to guide than a warning. He doesn’t foretell the end of society; he asks people to create boundaries.
You know the cliche about Thoreau is that he ran away from society. In fact, he built his cabin a short walk from town, and was back and forth all the time. The real point of his experiment was that he established a ZONE where he could be “less” connected on a regular basis, and allow his inner life to flourish.
So I think any of us can do the same today, inside our homes. A Walden Zone is a room or other kind of space – it could be the front porch – where digital screens are not used. A place for non-screen togetherness and solitude. Sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it?
Maybe. Maybe Powers finds peace in his weekly Internet sabbath because it’s self-imposed. I’m just cranky.