I haven't updated in about a week now. This is because last week around noon, I decided to see how different life would be without use of the internet. This meant no web browsing, iChat, email, or services that required the internet (like the iTunes Music Store or some stuff on the Wii). If I really wanted to be picky, it would have meant no texting as well, since the text message network is very closely tied to email.

I learned:

• It's very hard to maintain a blog when you don't have internet access.
• I missed out on a lot of minor conveniences, like weather info, phone book stuff, Google maps, and the general ability to look up random things quickly (i.e: "Hey, who was that one guy in that one movie?"
• I was really busy the past week and didn't really notice I was missing anything.
• I especially didn't miss iChat. Very few people use it at the right moment, and if you want to get ahold of someone, Facebook or Myspace (or especially a phone) is a pretty reliable way of doing so.
• Google News and Digg are my primary news sources. Oh yeah, can't forget Zefrank.
• Internet access is in most cases necessary for school. Some teachers post study guides online for students to print off. (I got ahold of a copy of one through a friend.) As an assignment, one of my teachers asked that we contribute a sentence to a wiki that she had recently made.
• I distribute a lot of stuff through the internet. I didn't have much to share during my time away (once again, I've been busy), but still, consider the supplies and cost of sharing things without the internet. I prefer having people watch videos on YouTube when they'd like rather than giving out DVDs, and sharing pictures on Flickr is a lot easier than making copies or showing a picture that I carry around with me.

It was a good little experiment.