The other day I deleted my home internet.
Mostly as an experiment (every now and then I will delete bank accounts, credit cards, phone numbers, etc... just to see what might happen), but also partly because my internet provider is awful. They offer the kind of service where you lose internet access every month or so, their technicians have to visit you in person to fix problems, you can hardly find their customer support number, and when you do get a hold of them, you get bounced around to a handful of temporary offshore employees reading off scripts for an hour.
And since the two primary telecom providers in my area are basically mirror images of each other (except one has a blue logo and one has a red one), I knew I wouldn't get much better service with the other one.
Initially I was considering downgrading my internet plan, but the clever telecom duopolies have dialed in their pricing so that if you want to save 10% on your internet bill, you need to accept a 10x internet speed reduction. There's really no such thing as a "budget" internet plan... everything is $70-$100/month or more.
So I just left entirely. Well, sort of.
I do have a $20/month phone plan (the cheapest I could find in Canada), which gives me 1GB/month of internet data, so I can still access the internet in a pinch... but 1GB goes by very fast so I keep that mostly for emergencies or when I'm walking around and need directions. It's certainly not enough for me to do work like uploading videos to YouTube.
I also have an "office" of sorts, which does have internet, so I do most of my publishing, emailing, or ChatGPT prompting there.
It's only been about a week so far, but I've already noticed a couple of big changes in my behavior.
First, on the day I deleted my internet, I realized how dependent I was. My TV stopped working, my computer became relatively useless, even my mattress (one of those cooling ones that tracks your body) stopped working.
I also found myself constantly opening up my laptop, refreshing my browser, and hitting the same "No Internet" page. Seriously, I must have tried to use the internet dozens of times that day. I guess it's all a subconscious pattern at this point, but it took a day without internet to really see how important of a role it plays in my life.
A few days in, I mostly stopped trying to use my laptop in the evenings and started reading a lot more instead. I even spent an evening drawing designs for a new idea I had with pen and paper. It's probably been years since I've picked up a pen and paper and focused on one singular task like that.
Because I'm no longer constantly using my laptop, I'm also not spending all my evenings in my office where my laptop is located... it sounds kind of strange but I'm starting to re-discover areas of my home that I rarely use. I'm also spending a bit more time outdoors, but a heat wave this weekend kept me inside.
Finally, the strangest thing I've noticed is how little "news" I get now, and how relaxed I feel in the evenings. I still get to hear the regular gossip and the news about which country is bombing which country at the office, but every day I go to the office with basically no context of what happened in the world since I left the day before.
It's a really cool feeling to not know what's happening thousands of miles away, what the stock market is doing, or what new drama is floating around on the internet, even if just for a few hours at a time. It's really relaxing, and seems to be making my evenings and weekends much more enjoyable. I'm also sleeping better, despite losing access to the "smart bed" that was supposed to perfect my sleep for me.
In the past I've tried things like deleting Twitter from my phone, limiting my screen time, etc..., but so far this is the only method I've had much success with. The other ones are too easy to get around. This time I had to physically send my modem in the mail back to my telecom provider, so it's a real pain if I change my mind and want internet again.
Anyways, highly recommend experimenting with this if you're either curious about how your internet usage may be clouding or distracting you from your offline life, or if you're just frustrated with your internet company and don't want to keep paying them for poor service.
We'll see how long this experiment lasts - don't expect timely replies tonight, offline for now!