resonant | Back at last

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Back at last

Wow, that was a long time to go without a computer. My laptop has a new logicboard, and they've added some stiffening to the keyboard half, so it feels subtly different. If I ever had my doubts about whether AppleCare was worth the money, I am now convinced.

I'm so very happy to be in touch with my imaginary friends again!

This period of computerlessness convinced me of some unsettling things about the computer, though:

- It has trained me to have a short attention span. On the computer, I rarely do one thing for any extended period of time. I'm composing an e-mail and reading my flist and playing a game, switching from window to window every thirty seconds.

When I sit down to read a book, it always takes me a while to reset my internal clock and not be looking up every page.

- Without meaning to, I'm anesthetizing myself with it. As long as I have a computer, I never have to sit and think about anything. I can use it to spend hours without ever putting two thoughts together; there's always a new thought to knock the old thought out of my head.

We've been facing some life-phase problems -- career changes for us, the kidlet needing something different from school, the desire to move to another town -- and mostly the problems have just been sitting there. But I handed my computer to Rod the Mac guy, and within 24 hours, I had a temporary solution to the school problem, a way to visualize the next three years in both our professional lives, and a plan to solve some of our financial problems. It was like my brain had gone to sleep and was just waking up.

You will notice, however, that I'm discussing this on the computer.

I don't have any solutions, but it's becoming obvious to me that I need to do something to create a proper place for the computer in my life -- to figure out a way to be able to use it as a tool when it's the best tool for the job, and to use it for fun, without giving it hours and hours of my time every day or allowing myself to train my brain into bad habits with it.

I don't suppose any of y'all have come up with a method that works?

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I have no solutions but I understand completely what you mean. I really need to take my laptop to the repair guys to fix my space bar problem, and I need more RAM, but the idea of being without my home computer for any length of time makes me twitchy.

And the thing is, I do feel like a slave to it, because even if I don't feel like checking my flist, I feel obligated to as if anyone will notice or care if I don't comment or post for a week. Or month. Or, you know, ever. :-)

Get a decent game for le kidlet to use on it and promise her two hours a day on it if she gets her stuff done. There are a bunch of absorbing challenging games out there - especially good sims or puzzle games, anything strategy - that, while definitely not a primary educational tool, beat reading sweet valley high novels (ahem, not that I do not have years of fond memories curled up on my friend's bed in grade school reading them).

You can get programs that kick you off after a certain time, or whitepage programs that restrict you to a very short list of websites, but they require discipline not to disable them, and I've never gotten them to work. Just going offline by switching off the modem can work. There's also some software out there like WriteRoom which force you to only use one plain window for writing etc.

But I think having a kid pester you for a promised game gives you an hour or two sans-child and sans-=computer, the two biggest brain-sucks ever invented. Both awesome, but also designed to destroy attention spans at all costs.

Without meaning to, I'm anesthetizing myself with it.

Just back from a road trip, yesterday, and yes, I find I have the exact same experience. I spent a week without the computer, interacting with people face-to-face and moving around, and... I feel like I'm physically (but not necessarily emotionally) depressed in my "normal" life, sluggish, and like you said: anesthetized.

I don't want that. I want to live and feel and see and celebrate having a body while it's working properly. Which makes me want to chuck my computer in a pond.

But I also don't want to lose touch with, for example, you.

Have compromised by filtering my flist down to people I actually care about. But I also remember how damn easy it is to just fall into a cyber existence. So I don't know how that's going to work.

I've been having a lot of neck and back related problems, ALL of which can pretty much be blamed on the computer. I woke up today and said, "It's a computer-free day!"

I lasted until 10:30.

Maybe tomorrow I will make it until noon?

I know what you mean - my computer went to be repaired for a day and I spent half an hour sitting in my room wondering what I could do without it. No tv shows! No email! No MSN! No friendslist! No word program to write in!

And then I realised that, oh yeah, I have paper and a pen, and books and... but it didn't feel right. Doesn't help that I don't have a tv or a stereo, so it was *really* quiet.

For the time limiting thing - maybe set yourself a number of hours to use it before something else, so you aren't tempted to keep going? Like, three hours on the computer before dinner or something, so you have to stop for dinner. Or giving the power cable to someone else so you can't turn it on?!?

Yup - internet for 30 minutes in the morning before work and no later than 10pm after I get home from work. Because I also like to eat, this usually results in about 1-2 hours maximum per weeknight. On the weekend, no more than 1 hour per day, unless I really have absolutely nothing to do (so pretty much 1 hour per day for the rest of my life).

Downside - can't post AND read all of f-list, so miss stuff fairly regularly. Can't follow all posts back and forward on metafandom. Can't keep up with all forums, so some days I don't read my flist at all, 'cos I'm on photography or cycling forums instead.

Upside - healthy meals, enough sleep, gardening, exercise, visiting friends, clean and tidy house, reading novels, photography, projects conceived, started and finished, planning for the future, etc.

In short, the time I have bought back from the internet has reduced the overall level of stress in my life by huge amounts.

I have to be on the computer a lot for BOTH my jobs now, so my solutions are the following. For normal days when I do have to be online or otherwise working on the computer for many hours, I try to also spend as much time as possible somewhere I can't be on it (the gym, out for a walk, shower/bath, setting a timer to take breaks to stretch my back by lying on the floor in various yoga poses, etc.). Also, there's a button on my laptop which turns the wireless capability on and off, so if I am trying to work on something and don't want the distraction of the Internet, I can just block it.

Then there are completely offline days. Most of the time I don't plan them in advance, but sometimes I just need to take one for my sanity. I just... don't open the computer, and enjoy reading an actual book or taking a nap or something in the time I would otherwise waste online. In fact, I sometimes take a whole day (usually a weekend one, obviously) where I don't speak to another human being at all if I can help it--I need the solitude and silence to recharge. Not as easy to do if you live with your family, of course, but I recommend it for everyone once in a while--I guess that's what retreats are for. I'm not sure if I necessarily come up with solutions to my life problems during that time, but it keeps me from going too crazy.

Oooh yes, I hear you.
One thing I tried with moderate success was to give myself interweb in hour-long slots, and then make myself do something else (ideally something physical) for an hour.

And re using computer without being lured by interwebs ... I bought myself a basic laptop without an internal modem, second-hand, and wrote most of the last novel in NoteTab on that. The investment definitely paid off. (This was before I had wireless, so there were rooms in the house where I couldn't have got online even with a modem. Now not even the garden is safe space. :))

I really enjoyed a week without interweb when I was lounging by a pool in a hot sunny country. A weekend without interweb when I was huddled indoors in country-of-residence didn't have the same effect at all.

Immersing myself in fanfic, I forget how to read anything as long and complex as a Real Novel (and some of the fic I read is novel-length, but, y'know, qualitatively different). It's life by drip.

yes. yes. yes. I mean, I can't imagine my life without the computer, honestly; it makes so many good things easier, from finding housing and jobs to keeping in touch with old, and making new, friends. On the other hand, the attention span thing and the anesthetizing thing have both also been very true for me.

About two years ago I decided not to have an internet connection at home. I generally go to either school or the public library for net access at least once every two days, and usually every day, so I'm not cut off entirely. But at home, I can focus on reading and writing and cooking and, you know, *sleeping*. (I've gotten consistently way more sleep as a result of this decision; I used to just stay up chatting and clicking until 2 or 3 am on a regular basis. Now I usually go to bed between 10 and midnight, depending on when I got up.)

The first few days, or maybe even weeks, were pretty awful. I felt disoriented and disconnected and like IMPORTANT STUFF WAS HAPPENING AND I WASN'T THERE. But rather soon this wore off. About once a month or so, I have something I really, really wish the internet was there for, but I've generally been able to solve the problem the old-fashioned way (look it up in the dictionary; call my mom) or just wait for an answer until the next day. (I generally keep a running list of things to do on the internet so I don't forget to look up whatever it was.)

So, if you and your husband both have easy access at work, I'd say -- just delete the net. The kid will be fine. :)

Welcome back, sweetsie!

I don't have any helpful advice to add about how to beat the net habit, BUT! This cracked me up.

I've generally been able to solve the problem the old-fashioned way (look it up in the dictionary; call my mom)

My mom was google before google existed! Was everyone's? Maybe I should start a new search engine called "Mom", and when answers pop up, the link descriptions will all start: "My Mama Says:"

I have the same problem. You figure it out, let the rest of us know, eh?

I have so many tedious things that need doing, so to avoid that I use the computer. Unfortunately, my list of things I'm avoiding has expanded greatly. I do use it less on the weekends, when everyone is home. But I can't NOT use it, because my classes are on-line. Vicious circle.

I'm so very happy to be in touch with my imaginary friends again!

Wow, I've never been anyone's imaginary friend before - it made me surprisingly misty-eyed (but in a good way!)

Computers are time alligators.
Computers are money alligators.
Computers are life alligators.

Well, at least we're all being chomped together!

Maybe we need an (online :-) support group to keep us from faffing about when we should be using the computer as a tool?

I don't have any solutions, but it's becoming obvious to me that I need to do something to create a proper place for the computer in my life -- to figure out a way to be able to use it as a tool when it's the best tool for the job, and to use it for fun, without giving it hours and hours of my time every day or allowing myself to train my brain into bad habits with it.

Ugh, too familiar to me, too. I've been dealing with a lot of the crazy in my life in the past year, so it's really, really too familiar.

I browse in Firefox, which has a small clock extension-thingy you can download for free. It sits in the bottom right corner of the browser window, and keeps track of how long you're using the browser (it stops when you minimize the browser window or otherwise focus on something else, so it's capabilities do have limits). That's helped me figure out exactly how much of a timesuck the internets are on any given day, and try to limit myself. It can be tough, since I'm a distance ed student, and I use the computer for legitimate school-related purposes (I'm just reading fanfic in between the researching).

Frankly, I'm considering instituting a system of bribery. No more than X amount of gratuitous computer use, or I lose X privilege (or cannot have Y reward). If it worked for Pavlov, it can work for me!

I'm strangely relieved to read this post and all the comments to it, and see I'm not the only one. I can force myself to work or research for two or three grueling hours, and then I sit down to take a "quick break" online, and I look up and three more hours have flown by. WTF?

If it helps, your post did inspire me to get offline, spend two hours reading The New Yorker and, okay, take a long nap, which I tell myself was much better for my eyes than staring at the screen. It really is an odd adjustment: reading on paper vs. reading on a screen. It does affect my brain in different ways. This is why I do most of my research/dissertation writing in longhand!

oh yeah. attempting to limit self for back purposes has been interesting. it's a habit - easy once you get used to it, but also easy to backslide to the old habits.

my experience is, once I start on the computer, time goes and goes, and there's not much I can do about that. so I don't manage when I stop, I manage when I *start* - not in the morning until I am dressed, fed, ready for work (usually means I don't get on at all in the mornings) and not in the evening until after dinner (which is pretty late in my house).

on weekends, only having computer after doing something else helps - after reading some book, after doing some gardening, after finishing housework. (she says, in bed with laptop at 10am - but i wasn't on the computer at all yesterday!)

Solution? I have exactly they same problem :P

I do the same. It's where I go when I don't want to think about (insert unpleasant fact here), and what I do when I don't want to do (insert unpleasant task).

However, right now I need anaesthetising, and I'm not giving it up. Everyone needs a little braincandy now and then. By which I mean "daily". :D

Would it be possible for you to take a computer sabbath one day a week? I'm a big believer in the day-of-rest as a cure for what ails you.

you have been missed.

I've got no solution for you, really, but I am one of the thousands (millions?) who feel your pain. :) Sometimes I think of the computer as one of those things (not sure what they're called since I'm not a parent) that you put in front of small children on car trips -- they're trays with several different activities in them that supposedly keep the kid busy and entertained and compliant. There are such things, right? I'm sure I've seen them. Er... Anyway. I've found that being on the computer in the evenings is too seductive for me -- I just can't stop once I'm online. Since I'm on the computer most of the day at work, that's way too much time sitting in front of a screen typing. It's also too stimulating, and then I can't sleep. My doctor told me she turns off the computer at 9 pm because she has the same problem (but who can turn the thing off when there's so much to do?). Difficult as it is, it's easier to force myself to stay off the computer when I get home from work. Downside? I feel completely cut off from my LJ friends. I haven't found a good solution yet, but I've liked the ideas I've read in your comments.

Good points. ::looks thoughtful:: Of course, my line of work is more like, all or nothing (after finding a job). & :-/

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