Living Off-Line

There are a number of countries in Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa that have lost their internet connections as the result of a broken undersea cable. Being pushed off-line has forced a number of businesses into a standstill and left people trying to figure out what to do without access to the internet. You can check out the story at CNN here.

This left me thinking about the days before I became aware of the internet. I remember growing up as a kid and not having heard of the word "email" let alone myspace.com or Facebook.com. I sit here typing this on my fancy little laptop that has the capability to access the internet wirelessly and wonder how I would survive off-line. I have no doubt that I could survive, I mean I could still cook my food without the internet, though my recipe database would be seriously lacking but when I take a step back and think about the impact the internet has on my life, it's kind of scary. I wonder how much time I spend on the internet a day, week, or even year. I must admit I don't spend a ton of time messing around online other than emailing and trying to update my blog daily but I bet most of my online time otherwise is fairly pointless.

Maybe for the 40 days of Lent I'll give up the internet and use that time for something else...but I guess it would be rude not to read or respond to people's emails...and I'm sure the few of you that actually read this blog would get bored with seeing the same post for 40 days straight...sooo maybe I'll try to survive off-line for 40mins a day....but what if someone IM's me.....or I get a friend request on Facebook........