Disconnecting the Connections

Recently, I took my Macbook Pro to the Genius Bar to get fixed. The Apple employee at the Genius Bar estimated it would take 3-5 working days to replace parts in the machine. My throat tightened as I tried to comprehend what he had just said.

Five days without internet. Five days where I couldn’t update my twitter or facebook. Five days without connections to cyberspace. (Please note as a Gen Y I have grown up being connected online and I also have a job on the internet, so going cold turkey for five days seemed apocalyptic to my daily living). How was I going to survive?

I reluctantly handed over my Macbook and I instantly felt the paradox of our modern age; the crushing feeling of having endless freedom yet the anxiety to always be connected to others. I had the liberation of going wherever I pleased without having to document where I was, whom I was with and what I was doing yet more than ever I just wanted to see what other people were doing, who they were with and what they were doing.

As I started to contemplate my life without social media, I became aware that that our real life and cyberspace egos are becoming extremely hard to differentiate between. One could say they are inextricably linked and our cyberspace identities are merely the fragments of our lives we choose to share. Hence why there is anxiety when we aren’t able to connect to each other online, thoughts of loneliness and isolation seem to pervade.

Thankfully the people at Mac took an afternoon to fix my Macbook Pro and I survived without the internet for a whole day. It doesn’t seem like much, but the urge to update a facebook status or send an email turns hours into what feels like weeks. It also made me realise that disconnecting isn’t a bad thing and it’s necessary every once and a while to escape the fast paced nature of cyberspace.

So I ask you, what is the longest you have gone without the internet? Did it change you in some shape or form?