Internet-Free June: COMMENCE.

Well, here goes.

A month without internet – the one thing I spend most afternoons going on, doing and seeing. I’m deactivating my Facebook account, un-renewing my internet, and deleting my phone’s bookmarks, starting Monday.

I should probably explain why I’m doing such a thing.

Hi, my name is Brendan Byron, and I’m an addict. Since late year 10, I’ve been spending more and more time on the Internet, until we get to the present, when I do not much but. I remember the golden summers of my long-past youth, when I took my phone out once a week – while waiting for the bus after Drama – and reviewed my Webcomic list and blogs.

Nowadays, well, put it this way: When I get back to my room, I turn on the internet, and go through my bookmarks. I keep open the interesting tabs until I’m most of the way through the list, then I blog. This happens about 4:30. I blog until dinner most days. After dinner, I socialise. If the blog post isn’t finished, then I try to get it done by 7:00. After homework, I do other, non-blogging related internet until I go to bed – if I don’t just rewrite that afternoon’s blog post. The blog isn’t the problem though: if I don’t blog, then I spend the time and bandwidth anyway, but without being productive about it. Time spent writing is not time spend internetting.

Now you see that I am not exaggerating when I say that I literally do nothing but sit on the computer reading and writing articles on the internet. Educating, informative articles, sure – but that doesn’t make them productive. The problem is that I’m trying to keep up with a constant stream of content from 20 bookmarks: six webcomics, six short opinion-based blogs, seven link-intensive blogs (including the Escapist Magazine), and Facebook (Blogger counts twice). If I get behind, then I need to catch up the next day. Therefore, I need to get so far behind the stream of content that there’s no point – which would take about a month. I’ve gotten stuck in a loop, and I need to get out.

Next reason: school work. I’m going terribly, and I can easily do better. June has 5 assessment tasks, most of which are home-based. Therefore, if I’m not wasting all my time in the afternoons on the internet, I may actually get stuff done. Logical enough. June takes me until two days until the end of the term – a concrete start and finish.

On a related note: during the HSC, I’ll be pulling a similar stunt. I need to have gone on an internet diet before the HSC, so I’ll have had experience in doing productive nothing by then. If I can give up internet for a month now, then the Trials and the HSC should be easier to get through.

But wait, there’s more. I never go on Youtube or download videos of any variety, yet manage to download 100 MB every day; other than those damn video-ads, it’s all text and pictures. This means, on a 1GB plan, I need a $20 internet refill every 10 days, which adds up. Someone has to pay that – my parents. It isn’t fair, so I’m giving them a break.

I’m sure there are more reasons if I were to think of them, but you get the drift. I’m off, and I’m not coming back ‘til the holidays.

One question remains: what the hell am I going to do instead?

I’ll be downloading the rest of the Humble Indie Bundle. So far it’s been – with the notable exception of Samarost 2 – fairly so-so, but the remaining two are 200MB and 300MB, which means they’ve invested enough time and effort into their games to need quality control and play-testing. I have games on my own computer, and movies, and music, and who knows, maybe I can bully relatives into taking me out on weekends. That should tick me over for a while.

I may pretend to blog – write down stupidly long essays on MS Word with the hope of releasing them during the holidays. I might write fiction, like I always say I will, but never do.

Or, perish the thought, I may actually do school work.

The fact that most boarders in my year don’t have internet is encouraging – they all seem to be doing fine. I might ‘hang’ with them.

One thing’s for certain: I won’t be doing this. See you in July.