A week without TV or Internet

I'm blogging this several months after my week without tv or internet, which wasn't my intention (I'm lazy and forgetful - oops!) but at least will give a perspective on what happened next.

The week off was unbelievably hard. I felt like I was missing on facebook, that things might have happened and I wouldn't know I felt very out of the loop. I found myself reaching for my mobile to check for updates at any spare moment. I had NO attention span, and was unable to to "be". It was actually quite alarming.

I found I had to work more at work. Everytime a thought popped into my head about a film I wanted to watch, or what the opening hours for such and such was, I had to put it out my head and keep working. It made me feel quite ashamed to see how easily I will leap on the net for five minutes even though I'm in the middle of a task.

Almost straight away I realised I hadn't needed to give up TV at all. I didn't really miss it, there are very few regular shows I watch. Instead, I watch whole series when it suits me on my BT Vision. However, two or three evenings I was at home, eating dinner in silence in front of a blank TV thinking, why I am putting myself through this? Thirty minutes of television to me company while I eat is not a habit that needs breaking!

I found my flat was tidier. I didn't end up surfing for rubbish on the net, so I was bored enough to wander the flat, find things to do and go to bed at a reasonable time. I actually read my bible once or twice (see the task to read the Bible all the way through, I haven't got very far yet...).

Then there was an earthquake in Japan. I couldn't check the news. I couldn't see what people were saying facebook. I didn't know how many were hurt or what had happened apart from a discussion with work colleagues. I had my one sort of "cheat" where a work colleague had an article from the bbc website up and called me over so I could just "happen" to read over her shoulder for a second.

And then the week was over and I hit facebook with a vegence and decided to sign up to Twitter which was an odd response! But I have discovered Twitter is very different to facebook and I have been so inspired by some of the people I follow, I wish I'd done it earlier.

And now? The flat is a mess. I haven't read the bible for weeks. I still check facebook and twitter almost immediately on waking (mostly to stop myself from going to straight back to sleep). I am better at not spending whole evenings surfing for random rubbish, but this might be because I have not really had an evening in for weeks. So I just come home and go straight to bed!

Writing this has reminded me that I was a bit calmer and had a better attention span when I went cold turkey. So I think I may try to cut back a bit. It would be good to try and restrict my use to just lunch times at work, so my little flat gets the benefit of more free time at home!

I'm very glad I did it.