Get off the internet!

There is a problem with the internet. There is a lot of good in it too. I mean look at blogs; like this blog, it’s amazing! It allows people to express themselves and people almost everywhere have access. Then again, there are millions of blogs out there, frequently about people’s daily lives. It can be hit or miss when you go blog searching, like anything on the internet, you need some scepticism.

So what is wrong with the internet, other than it being the ultimate panopticon and facebook being stalker-central? You forget how to life your lives. So many people only have an outlet via the internet, and I’m glad they have it, but a lot of people are permanently plugged in. [More matrix imagery ahead] we need to be like Neo and learn how to control it and not be a slave to it. This is not to say that I hate the internet, or that I actually love the internet. I feel like I am a slave to it, I lose touch with the real world and real actions because I’m too occupied with this virtual existence.

This might have something to do with the changing of seasons. I mean, it is gorgeous outside. My schedule used to involve waking up in darkness and hovering brain-dead in front of my computer with my coffee first thing in the morning. I’ve taken to waking up with sun shining through my window, and taking my coffee outside with a book (Brideshead Revisted, it is amazing, I love the homoeroticism). I think it’s changing my perspective on life for the moment. As a natural escapist it is hard for me to let go of my outlets [first it was books, then movies, now THE INTERNET, and frequently books and movies through the internet, you know you are sinking when you are pirating digital books]. I know this season is filling me with hope for the future, but I want to share that hope, the hope that I can let go. That I can get off the internet, as le tigre so put it.

Moreover, we spend so much of our time in this digital world we forget how to navigate real friendships. Maintaining a friendship over facebook makes real face-to-face interaction difficult. Real actions as well, you get so used to making your point in a comment box you forget how to formulate a statement in the real world. You forget how to go to a protest. You forget how to interact with the world that you physically live in because you are mentally preoccupied with the internet.

I’m really repeating Baudrillard, McLuhan and many other wise theorists of the past century who saw this coming. So I beg you to do something in the real world. It doesn’t matter, go for a bike ride, sit in the sun, do some street art, have a picnic, etc. I’m going to go do something now.