It's time to DTR with the internet

Surprisingly, I want commitment

I took my first internet break last summer. I had just landed back in the city after some medium-term traveling and deleted Instagram from my phone in a temper tantrum on the tarmac. When I was away, I couldn’t care less about what was going on on the internet. Everything in front of me was very new, very exciting, or very confusing—in other words, required my full attention. Occasionally I’d check in to see what was happening in the world beyond my present reality, but it never lasted long.

When I got back to Los Angeles, I had no job and nothing on the calendar because, well, when you are not around to take care of your friendships for an extended period of time, there is a lag while you do a little rehab to get back into the rotation. This was all fine, a trade I entered into, but I quickly found that in order to avoid spiraling into a distressing loop of post-trip blues doom and gloom—it was imperative that I not touch the internet. 

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In my Life Before That, the internet was, in a very attractive and pioneering metaphor, the zit that I knew I should leave alone, but picked at anyway. I cared about things and people that I’d probably be better off not caring about. I became fluent in a language of internet-speak that, when used in person, revealed where I spent a lot of my free time, eliminating the opportunity for mystery. This is of course, by design. The puss of the internet is too enticing to leave unpopped. But when I got back from this particular trip, the internet was less like the forbidden allure of a whitehead and more akin to the post-pop puss on the tissue in the garbage – simply disgusting.

I’m not sure what it was about adjusting to being back that made the internet seem suddenly so abhorrent. I sent a few emails here and there but would spend the rest of my downtime reading books or finding some menial manual task to labor over excessively—all to avoid the siren song of what had been my greatest time-suck in available memory. Anytime I picked up my phone to open a browser or idled my thumb over an app, I would sigh and disappear in between the couch cushions along with the crumbs of my half-eaten toaster waffle, get up and start pacing, or gag.

The kind of siren song I prefer

My working academic theory is that I had gone through an intensely abrupt shift in what I’ll call “the balance of interesting.” Suddenly, whatever was happening on the internet was objectively more interesting than what I was doing in my life.* After an extended period of time with that balance entirely in my favor by virtue of exploring a new destination, I hadn’t figured out how to handle the wild swing in the other direction. So I was a sore loser and avoided the internet. 

Weeks went by and eventually the internet wormed its way back into my life. Apps descended from the cloud back onto the software of my phone like little cherubs from the heavens. I infinite-scrolled into oblivion. I took entirely too much advantage of the LAPL’s free NYT subscription, gorging on the archives article after article – productive procrastination in full force. I was back into my old pimple popping habits. 

Then along came “reading deprivation week”. 

Going no contact

In the midst of unemployment, I had used my free time as an opportunity to embark on The Artist’s Way, a right of passage for any writer in Hollywood, and just about anyone looking to tap into their creativity. The Artist’s Way is a 12-week “creative recovery” program, and my experience with it is a different topic entirely, but the pertinent detail here is that one of the weeks of the program prohibits all reading. No books. No scripts. No newspapers. And no internet. 

Author and spiritual creativity guru Julia Cameron writes in the book:

“Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool–and a very frightening one. Even thinking about it can bring up enormous rage. For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.

…

Sooner or later, if you are not reading, you will run out of work and be forced to play. You’ll light some incense or put on an old jazz record or paint a shelf turquoise, and then you will feel not just better but actually a little excited.”

So a couple months after my first break, I was back off the internet, in an even more strict sense this time.** I went for more walks and listened to more music, playing whole albums top to bottom. I rearranged every piece of furniture in my apartment and put it all right back where it started. I colored. I cleaned out my closet. I called my friends. It was phenomenal. 

The week ended – but I stayed off the internet. I kept my head in the sand for several more weeks. It was honestly a relief. Especially with the state of the film and TV industry, it was hard to escape the online echo chamber of anxiety, bad news, and impatience over a situation that was entirely out of my control. It was doing me no good and I did some much-needed blocking out.

But you can’t live your whole life like that.

Getting back together

I’m at the point where that pesky ex the internet has crept back in, turned to me and asked, “So, what are we?” Once again, I am reading too much news as a way to avoid other things I should be doing. I spend more time watching YouTube videos of “How to learn Spanish faster!” than I do actually learning Spanish. I scroll through the MLM-riddled husk of Facebook, having deleted all other social media except for Instagram, which I tell people I “don’t really use anymore,” but sometimes open on a browser when I need information about a restaurant. I have no clear boundaries.

I would very much like to define my relationship with the internet. And the irony of this being the first essay of something new I’m sending out…over the internet, is not lost on me. We are all well aware that there are drawbacks and dangers to the internet–and I’m certainly glad I’m not coming of age in its current level of ubiquitousness–but I also believe it’s a tool that has undoubtedly ushered in progress. Not to mention, it’s not going anywhere.

I don’t want to shy away from it and be someone who blames the internet for all of society’s, or my personal, ills. This is not hate mail about the internet and I’m not looking to be technologically single forever. I just want to find the proper positioning of the internet in my life. For once, I’d like to ditch my aloof Aquarius inclinations and commit to a healthy relationship where the internet and I bring out the best in each other – but I just can’t figure out what that looks like. Maybe I should google it.   

xo

Sam  

*Cleaning up dog pee at my house-sitting gig. I took great care of the dog, she just had bad manners.

**Full transparency, by this week of the program, I had just resecured employment. So, I allowed myself was to cheat and read emails in order to not jeopardize my paycheck.