The Day the Internet Died
One afternoon some time ago, a small red cross appeared in the Windows system tray (this was back in the days before the Chromebook, or the Macbook).
Okay – either Windows, or the router is on the fritz. Hmmm disconnect and reconnect doesn't work. Have I kicked a plug out? Nope. Oh shit – all the lights are out on the router.
I wiggled wires. I pulled plugs out and pushed them back in. I hit the router several times. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Silence descended.
Slightly shellshocked, I walked into the lounge, where my other half was playing LEGO Starwars.
“The internet connection is dead”
“What do you mean?”
“We have no internet connection – the router is dead.”
“Hey – look at this bit – you can get Chewbacca to wear a stormtrooper helmet, only it doesn't fit”
I walked back into the kitchen, and wondered what to do with myself. One moment I had been running Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger. I had been reading blogs, chatting with friends, reading the news, listening to podcasts and watching movies. Suddenly it was all gone.
Imagine standing in the middle of a crowd of all your friends, where you are afloat on the sea of the general hubbub. Then imagine a plug is pulled from somewhere and they are all gone. Everybody you know. Everything you can see. Everything you can hear. You are disconnected from everything.
And so, late yesterday afternoon I became disconnected from the internet. Like a lost sheep I wandered the rooms of the house looking for things to do. Suddenly television seemed like a viable option – even computer games. But they were not interactive. They were not real people. The severance of the internet from our house exposed just how much of a social animal the 'net has caused me to become. I was lost.
As much as you may laugh (as do I) at the description of my predicament, it was a very real sense of being “cut off” from everybody I know, and everything I am interested in. Going back to “normality” for most people seemed like a strange “second choice”. Watching television that is chosen for you by the channel. Listening to radio where your only choice is to listen or not. Reading a book where you have no recourse for comment.
Needless to say, I survived.