On Friday, 13th of July my Virgin router stopped working. I decided not to report it until I was in work on Monday. After some time on hold I talked to their call centre and they agreed my router had stopped working and agreed to send out a new one. The new one arrived at 5.15pm on Wednesday 18th July. Luckily the carrier sent me an email giving me an esitmated time of delivery, as I ws expecting it Thursday or Friday as the call centre person told me 3-4 working days.
After a fairly long call to another call centre they 'activated' the router and I was all connected by shortly after 6.00pm.
So for just about 4 and half days I was without the internet, except by not very reliable 3G via my IPhone 5, or when I was working. So how was it?
It was hell!
News
I read most of my news online, using the Guardinian site, the local newspaper site, and occasionally the BBC site. I check the news 5 or 6 times a day. I had to watch the news on TV, and while there are 24 hour news channels you cannot choose what news to watch. It just felt so wrong. Before the internet I would check teletext (younger people don't know what I mean) 4 or 5 times a day, but rarely watched news programs,
Facebook
I play a facebook game called Pet Dragons 2. It is in its death throes. Once it had thousands of players and now it has tens of players. However, the game needs lots of checking on your pet dragon, at least twice a day, but I am a bit obessive so I have FB open constantly. This means I see notifactions constantly. I ignore most of the notifactions, but I really missed having them.
Shopping and services
I shop online, home delivery groceries and Amazon mostly, but also takeaways from time to time. I missed all that. I missed checking the Met office website, and the National lottery website.
Staying in touch
I regularly let my phone run out of battery. During term time I switch it to airplane mode when I am lecturing, and some times forget to turn it back on for days or even a week. The single most reliable way to get in touch with me is FB messages. That wasn't true anymore and I was worried.
Random things
A song pops into my head, I find it on you tube. I hear a word I widon't recognise I search for it on Duck Duck go. I want to check the factuality of something on TV there is the search engine again. All of this was missed.
In summary
I am not addicted to the internet, in the same way I am not addicted to air. I need it for living. That is actually quite shocking.
