Tech writer Paul Miller (most recently writing for The Verge) – is leaving the Internet for a year starting tonight at midnight. One of his final indulgences is a Reddit IAmA session (the comments, as usual when you expose yourself to Redditors, are a mixture of hilarious and tauntingly offensive).
Aside from the novelty of a tech writer giving up the Internet for a year – there doesn’t seem to be much substance behind this…uhhh, experiment? Life without the Internet is neat, but a giant chunk of Planet Earth goes without the Internet everyday. With the cultural saturation of challenge-style reality shows on TV, some dude forgoing the Internet for a year doesn’t really deliver much pop anymore. It’s kind of like a really rich person giving up dollar bills for a year. There’s something latently offensive about it.
It’s not so much the experiment itself, but the misplaced gumption Miller wields in his explanation about why he’s doing this and what he hopes to learn or find (see video on link above). For example, here’s a little nugget of daringness – “At midnight tonight I will leave the internet. I’m abandoning one of my “top 5″ technological innovations of all time for a little peace and quiet. If I can survive the separation, I’m going to do this for a year. Yeah, I’m serious.”
The tension – it’s palpable.
What Miller is doing is neither interesting nor unique. Modern day Luddites – by either design or chance – would scoff at Miller’s experimental abstinence (assuming they stole a glance at someone’s laptop or phone long enough to read his parting words). Heck, I quit Facebook four months ago and not only did I not really care, but I betcha Facebook is somehow carrying on without me. I can sum up my learnings from quitting Facebook in one sentence – I am 30% less annoyed/disappointed by humanity. (Full Disclosure – I have supplanted Facebook use with a minor, and already faltering, addiction to Reddit.)
To Paul Miller – explorer and risk-taker that he is – I offer the following: Godspeed. And good luck being a reporter without using e-mail. Oh, and good luck finding a new gig sans Internet should The Verge crumble from the Internet whilst your gone.
On a serious note – the meaning of the Internet in modern day life and its effect on humanity is an important concept that should be studied and learned from. I just don’t think a dramatic, announced exit from the medium is the way to do it. Thoreau didn’t trudge over to Walden Pond with a brass band on his heels. Miller should have just disappeared the Internet from his life without a word to anyone but his editors; kept records of his experience along the way; and reappeared one year later to tell his tale.
Image: Bad Day At The Office from BigStockPhoto.com