Kyle’s May Challenge Recap

What was I thinking?

I’m not saying it was awful, but I imagine this is what it’s like to use the Internet in a country with heavy amounts of censorship (China? Singapore? Cuba?). Then again, the communist approach to the Internet was not without it’s benefits.

I sent more emails to friends last week than I did in the entire month before that.  My fantasy baseball team (The Toulonians!) have come back from the dead and surged from 10th place to a mighty 7th. And. . . well ok, I still don’t have a job lined up- but I’m closer than I was 5 days ago.

I’m not saying that my Internet diet caused Albert Pujols to go on a hitting streak, but this week was a Lacanian break in the flow that is my Internet use. In non-nerd speak, I had to stop and think about what I’ve been doing instead of just doing it. I realized that surfing the web is something I’d been doing out of habit.

On the other hand, some of those Internet habits turned out to be good habits that I sorely missed. I have unfairly vilified tabs. Yes, they can be a distraction, but it’s not as if someone at Firefox created them just to provoke my latent tendencies towards ADD.  Tabs and extra windows are can be delicious side dishes to my web surfing main course. A number of times this past week, I wanted to look up to enhance whatever it was I focussing on, whether it was to get an additional detail, fact check an email (was that Ethan Hawke or Jude Law in that movie?) or get some context about something I was reading without leaving that page.  The New York Times reports French sent the ship The Mistral to Burma? Isn’t that based in Toulon? Turns out it is. And browsing through all the jobs on Craigslist is a great way to find jobs I wouldn’t have thought of, but without CNN in the background, it’s also pretty dull stuff.

There are some new habits I developed last week that I hope I keep.  Checking my email, the weather and sports scores just once a day is plenty.  Once a day I enjoy them- a pleasant diversion.  More than that it becomes a chore.

On the other hand, wikipedia never hurt anyone. Maybe this weeks blog posts will have a little research in them.  And while I managed to read a whole book last week with all the time I wasn’t online, I can’t wait to add that book to my profile on goodreads. 

Although it was painful, I’m glad I took a few days to step back and think about the way I use my time. I just hope I can translate this experience into a sense of moderation- because internet deprivation is no good at all.