I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet (2013)

The most glaring thing about this article to me is that I didn’t find the author having mentioned that he had any significant offline relationships prior to taking a year off. I mean, he encounters various people under an array of pretenses throughout the article, but I can’t help but wonder what his issue could have been with connecting with people without the internet with these different encounters taking place within the year. In this sense, the story as an experience raises more questions than it answers because I don’t know the guy.

But at the same time, this account fits right in with more recent ones that I’ve come across about how difficult it is for people to find social networks offline, particularly for young men (I think the author was in his late 20s when this was published?).

What I ask myself about this article is if and how the outcome would be different almost 10 years on. "Digital Detox" of course is a thing but rarely if ever does it go beyond a couple weeks, maybe a month. Would we now also see this sort of "diminishing returns" that are also described in the article? Would we experience them faster?

I think this is really telling:

"By late 2012, I'd learned how to make a new style of wrong choices off the internet. I abandoned my positive offline habits, and discovered new offline vices."

Basically - you just find new bad habits...!