One year, no internet- what’s reasonable?

Yeah, this.

If you’re checking email and WhatsApp; you haven’t quit the internet and you’ve got no hook at all.

The only way you can have a USP is to go cold turkey (pun intended) literally all year. If you check emails and Whatsapp there is no interest at all. Finalise the deal before you switch off and switch on next Jan 1st. Get someone to intermittently film you on an old camcorder

Yes, many of us over the age of eg: 40 can remember a life without the internet but the point is that it's absolutely not our daily life now, is it?

Even my 77-year-old dad, who refuses point-blank to get a smartphone and still pays bills by post (ffs), uses email now and then.

I would probably read a book about this, but you'd have to be absolutely all-in, OP. The fact that you've floated checking your emails and WhatsApp once a day suggests that you might not be fully committed to this as a concept, though...

It's not hard to imagine for many of us though OP, as we actually lived many years of our life without internet (as it wasn't yet invented).

Being born into a world without the internet is not the same as giving it up in the present day when so much of modern life is reliant on it.

I think if you're not going to go offline completely then you should refer to it as quitting social media rather than quitting the internet.

I appreciate that makes for a less shocking/ intriguing topic for a book, but it is essentially what you're doing.

It's almost impossible to quit the internet entirely and still live in the modern world (hence why you want to keep hold of your WhatsApp and emails).

I'd be very interested to read it but I'd also be expecting you to not use ANY internet. That includes phones, computers, connected TV, no emails, no online shopping, no mobile banking or bills, no online NHS services.

Offline completely.

I nearly laughed out loud when you said checking your Whatsapp and email once a day.

I don't think you're cut out for this task OP although it would be very interesting to see how you got on without it for a year.

I think no internet at all, definitely. Set an out of office email with your (Nokia) phone number on it on Dec 31 - back on Jan 1 2026.

PPs have said it would be like the first decades of their life but it would be different in that you’d be living offline in a world that is otherwise online. I think it could be a positive experience/good story but you won’t know until you’ve done it. Johann Hari’s book was different from this.

Basically you now have a week to organise your life around not having the internet, so I’d get on with it. Including cancelling your internet connection. I think a picture of that cancellation would be required in your book. You could go and talk to other people who are offline. Count how much money you’ve saved/spent extra. Could be good!

It's not hard to imagine for many of us though OP, as we actually lived many years of our life without internet (as it wasn't yet invented). So 'we' are not your demographic. Those who were born INTO the digital age wouldn't want to ever quit (and why would they??). So they are not your demographic.

So...who are you aiming it at?

Also...as others have said, 'no internet' should be that in its entirety, so you would have to be totally off-grid (completely and utterly!) Have you ever used a typewriter, do you have terrestrial TV, are you prepared to be without your mobile for a whole year?

Have you REALLY thought this through? 🤷‍♀️

Maybe start small, go off grid for a week and write a blog about it.

I would love to read a book like this! It would have to be no Internet AT ALL though, including asking other people to use it for you to do things like book flights, shop etc..

Honestly the book pitch sounds SO BORING

I would find that a completely uninteresting premise for a book. My life until I was 30 was without internet, so what? I think my experience of not having TV in my country until I was 14 is probably slightly more interesting. But only slightly.

If you are quitting the internet then you stop using a smart phone and cut off all wi-fi capability. It's everything or nothing. Not half half. And I wouldn't read it anyway, I can't imagine anything more boring, and besides which, I have to assume it won't be on Kindle.

See, I remember those times too but I might potentially find it interesting, in a sort of 'gosh, I'd forgotten it was like that!' way.

it won’t be ‘how it was’ though - society is now set up with the expectation of people accessing the internet. There’s no phone boxes, no yellow pages offline, no travel agents, no way to file a tax return offline or read your kids school newsletter etc etc etc

You might be able to get around some of these things by massively inconveniencing other people (asking school to print newsletter etc) but what’s the point?

Would I read a book about someone who went vegan for a year 'except for breakfast'?

To be honest even doing it properly might be stretching it to think it's a book's worth of material. Would you unplug your smart meter, refrain from using RCS messages etc? I'd anticipate that you'll find it very socially isolating, which I might be somewhat interested to read about. Potentially too the effects on attention span and mental state - e.g. not worrying about all the random things we're told to worry about that we'd never hear about if not for the internet. I still think you'd need another hook though. Are there any Amish style communities you could find and write about? What are they up to?

You can’t have any internet as that would defeat the entire “point” of the book.

Everyone over the age of 50 can remember what it was like to live without the internet. Although it brings various problems, it also brings vastly more conveniences, which anyone with a lick of common sense can see. Nobody really wants to go back to a pre-internet lifestyle (although many of us like a little break from time to time) and the world as a whole certainly isn’t going back, so the point of the exercise is rather lost on me.

I think this has been covered. In all honesty it’ll go - some stuff is impossible, some stuff is much harder, you get left out of stuff cos of no social media, but then you cherish hobbies and get puke inducingly sentimental. Yawn.

I'd find it interesting, but like others I think it needs to be truly offline including no email or WhatsApp. I'm trying to reduce my own reliance on tech so i think reading about what was easy and what the problems were would be interesting to work out what options might be most feasible for me.

I think you will have a tough job doing it tbh. If you're going to do it, do it properly but honestly it will make life ridiculously inconvenient.

Banks and utility companies all charge money to have paper statements now. Banking especially will be annoying without an app as you will have to attend the branch and their opening hours are limited.

It means no WhatsApp, no Emails, no Satnav when you're lost.

No Spotify for music, no streaming services so just terrestrial TV. Yes Netflix is cheating even if it comes with your package.

Can you even get a TV package without Internet now? I think all TV boxes now are run off an internet connection so it may mean no TV either. Analogue system has long since been shut down.

Landline only phone.

No customer service chat so you have to wait in endless phone queues.

How will you access a doctors appointment? They're all online triage now so you'll end up spending hours of your life on hold and arguing with unsympathetic and unimpressed receptionists.

Technically even paying by debit card in Tesco is using the Internet.

The Web is far too entwined in our daily lives now for not having it to be anything but a pain in the arse. Fuck that for the sake of a book. I prefer my sanity intact.

Offline completely of course. Being on WhatsApp once a day is a massive cheat. You need to use snail mail or telephone instead. No mobile phone and just a landline would be the most radical experiment and stop you from being tempted to look.

If you have a problem with say your bank, I’d expect you to find out their phone number from a paper bill or call direct enquiries if that’s a thing anymore. I’d expect you to resort to old fashioned items like an address book and have things like coins on you so you can pay for parking.

I suspect that the conclusion to your experiment that life is much more time consuming without the internet and those who can’t/wont access it are spending increasing amounts of time on stuff that takes others seconds. For example I can take a photo of a cheque on my banking app rather than go into the branch and pay it in physically (nearest physical bank is several miles away)

On the other hand I think that you’ll be relieved to be away from social media unless you’re like a teen and lots of gossip is about things that have happened online.

I also wonder if it’s possible to not look at other people’s devices too. These days it’s easy to show someone a photo on your phone, instantly look up what year a movie came out or look up directions (how’s your map reading skills and do you have the patience for someone else to be the one giving directions?)

Come to think about it, I’d be interested in what prep you would need to be offline for a year and what the first app you open afterwards.

Is there a huge public demand for reading about someone choosing to be mildly-massively inconvenienced?

I’m struggling to understand the angle. It won’t fill a whole book you just not using the internet. It will just be a litany of you phoning people won’t it….

And how will you fill the rest of it with interviews and opinion etc without the internet? How will you research? Contact people? Conduct interviews?

I don’t think the fact we’re over reliant and addicted is new news so as I say, struggling to understand the hook here.

In the nicest way possible, I know a few agents, I think if a celebrity or known writer did this then maybe it would be interesting….. but some random giving up the the internet for a year…

ooo what will happen???

it will be very difficult- lots of chapters on how unreasonable modern life banking and the like.
then you’ll miss a job offer or life partner. And be sad
then you will reach an acceptance ….
and realise just how amazing life is without the internet and how shallow the rest of us are.

then you will take up the internet again.

like yawn 10/10

Thompson Local Directories / Yellow Pages don't exist.
Try getting through on a helpline to many places.

Do it for a day and then decide whether it's practical. For me, it really isn't. I need to pop to my parents because my mum has just received a 'hospital letter' in a link and can't access it.

Can you

• access healthcare without the internet? I would struggle around here.
• run your business?
• pay your bills?
• work your boiler?