Neighbour has no internet, tv or smart phone

[Bottlesofrumonthewall]

I was talking to my neighbour recently he is 40 I’m much younger than him and he casually mentioned that he has no internet at home, no smartphone, no TV, and doesn’t drive. He cycles everywhere.
it feels completely surreal in 2025 that someone actually lives like this. I think I would turn into a crazy lady without my gadgets. I coped as a child, but don’t play out anymore so now the idea of spending every day like that is completely alien to me, and yet here he is
Does anyone else know someone who also lives this way it just seems so rare now

Some people like to try to be as off-grid as possible, and others prefer to avoid having electronic distractions at home. Has your neighbour never had the internet, TV or smart phone? If they haven't, they won't know what it's like to have those things, or what they're missing, and will have learnt to function without them. Some older people that I know don't have internet or smart phones... and are horrified about me not having a TV or reading the news😂

My mother has no Internet, she cycles a lot she gets her news from the radio and written press (reads the Guardian), she does have a TV, a non smart mobile. She is in her 70s

Life is not always convenient I buy things on Amazon or other sites for her if she needs something she can't easily get in her small town in the Welsh valleys. She has to get a train to Cardiff to do in person banking as she finds telephone banking difficult to manage. She misses out on information/ updates/pics shared on family group chats. There are 7 of us siblings and so far 15 adult grandkids and 2 great grandkids so we use social media to keep in touch.

I have internet, smartphone, computer etc. -- but seeing the effect all these devices have on my mind and concentration span I think they're a serious threat to our brains. I have a great deal of respect for your neighbour!

If I were single I would give it a try, except for driving. Without a car I would not consider life worth living. But twenty years ago I thought the same about tobacco.
Internet in Library music on radio and discs of one size or another.
Some areas are being cut off from landline phones, so what then? Are simple phones available in those areas?

Are the people who claim that you must use the internet the same people who moan about poor delivery services? I reluctantly use the internet but hate online shopping either for presents clothing or food. I like to see what I am buying. It can be useful if you live in a remote area , I guess.

When we moved here 15 months ago, we quickly learnt there was no TV aerial. And honestly, we haven't missed live TV. On the very, very rare occasion we want to watch something "live" it's almost always on "watch now" on iPlayer or similar.
Or we have to wait an hour for it to appear on the streaming site for that channel.

Same! I spent my formative years with no TV and I was an avid reader growing up. We had a radio for the news, the milkman delivered the newspaper daily and we had a home phone. We used to listen to the Sunday Drama on BBC Radio 4 as a family. This was in the 80s and first half of the 90s.

She only said she didn’t watch TV and films.

Man you'll suffer when the Russians bomb the grid

Bizarre comment. You have no idea what newspaper the person reads.

No TV. Fuck that. Loads of amazing TV programmes around today. I think people who proudly claim they’re not interested in telly are the same as someone proudly declaring they never read a book or they don’t like music or theatre.

Also, neighbour is probably a serial killer OP.

Agree. My child will get better gcse results because of the internet and tv, watching films of Macbeth and Elizabeth and having access online to loads of past papers, marking schemes and teachers who post online about exam techniques . She’s interested in politics , goes online and listens to podcasts.

ive improved my mental health and realised how abusive my mum was, perhaps if there had been online resources 30 years ago I’d have come to that conclusion a lot sooner.

I agree. There are loads of people who have none of this stuff.

My mum has no internet, has never driven, no smart tv (hers is 25 years old, a whacking great big thing you could fit a person in, but works perfectly well for channels 1-5 so she won’t let us replace it). She had a bus pass for the local town centre but it expired because she never used it. Her phone is a £10 drug dealer’s phone from Argos and she couldn’t send or open a text if you gave her written instructions. She’s not long had her very first bank account open, but has no DDs and doesn’t use cash point machines. She withdraws her pension in cash on a Monday, from the local post office. She has a payment card for her water bill, a card and key for gas and electric and my DH takes her shopping on a Sunday morning which she pays for in cash. I sorted her housing benefit and council tax exemption out for her by phone donkeys years ago and they just send her a form every now and again for her to sign confirming nothing has changed. She gets pension credit, so has a free tv licence. I order her medication at the same time I do mine (not on line as neither of us have NHS accounts) but by nipping into the GP on my way home from work, writing what we want on a slip and then hers is delivered to her by the chemist. I can’t remember the last time she asked any of us to get something for her she couldn’t find locally. She buys a daily newspaper and watches the news /newsnight etc.

She’s very happy with that, has zero interest in any technology beyond the microwave, and is by no means unusual in her neighbourhood. I’d say probably 80% of her neighbours are in the same position.

And I try to emulate that. I do have the internet, obviously, and I love a bit of on line shopping, but I don’t do apps or stream music or watch podcasts etc. I don’t do on line banking or have a usable email address (I set my iPhone up to the extent where it generated an email address but not far enough that I could access an in box, so I use that for any on line shopping) and I don’t use social media other than MN. It’s very peaceful.

I agree that some people make claims that don't really have any substance: they 'don't watch TV', but they watch YouTube, Netflix etc; they 'don't use the internet' but they have a smartphone that they regularly use to go online.

All banking is online nowadays; it's just that, if you go into a branch or use telephone banking, an employee just does online banking on your behalf.

I feel for elderly people who had already lived half of their lives before the internet came along (although it was already nascent by 1995, if not earlier, so the number must be dwindling). Many older folk embrace it and are willing to at least learn the basics, but many are too scared or resolutely stubborn to ever try using it. Again, like with banking, many of them do 'use' it - except that they will frequently ask their adult children or grandchildren to find everyday information for them or "order it for me and I'll give you the money".

I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody under 60 (unless they have learning difficulties or other vulnerabilities) would actively choose to completely ignore the existence of the internet. Nobody is saying that you have to use it all the time or for every task, but it's very difficult - or far harder - to do so many things without it nowadays. It's basically 'the world' online - there is loads that you'll have no interest in and no need for, but plenty that you will want and need to access at least occasionally.

I think some of the currently middle-aged internet refuseniks are in for a nasty shock in their later years, if they rely solely on 100% offline living, as much of that provision is still deliberately (and often reluctantly) kept available for the time being largely for those who are elderly now. Once that generation has left us, doing all of these things won't just be the expected default but it will be the only option and effectively mandatory for any kind of life. Much better to choose to get to grips with it whilst you're 50 now than to be forced to do so from scratch once you're 80.

Nobody will have much sympathy for an 80yo in 2050 who pleads helplessness (absent SEN or vulnerabilities) because they actively chose to ignore the dominant, standard way of communicating that the world started using when they were only 30. They'll be stuck with the indignity of having to ask their children to do everything for them whilst all of their fellow octogenarians will be online as second nature.

Nor whether they eagerly mentally mop up whatever they read or rather if they consider everything critically by using their own intellect.

Re her telly, the analogue signal was switched off several years ago, so she must have a modern digital box attached to view Channel 1-5 on this ancient contraption?

Sounds like bliss.

Quite a lot of people are trying to live an analogue life. It’s a big trend.

Same here. 🤗

I think there's a big difference between maintaining/gaining an interest in older, 'traditional' things rather than doing everything online, as opposed to completely abandoning online/modern life.

I can well see how people may prefer the old warm sound of vinyl over mp3 files, or sitting in the garden/on the beach with a great paperback rather than using a Kindle or doomscrolling; but how many people under 60 still actively use old-fashioned cameras and then try to find somewhere that will process their film once they've taken 36 photos, rather than use a phone, or even a standalone digital camera?

Just like I haven't met anybody in recent times who has excitedly converted their indoor toilet to a storage room and switched back to using a drafty cludgie in the garden for all of their toilet needs.

These people bore the hell out of me. I've been out with a guy once who didn't have a smart phone or GPS so he had to study the route before leaving home and plans couldn't be adjusted after that (like we did in the 90s and before, but we had no choice then). I have another friend who used a typewriter. Good for them if they're happy, just don't want to have anything to do with that and I don't think they are superior [Yawn]

I am mid 60s and have iPhone/tv/ipad/internet. People I know with not even email rely on others to print up stuff and post it or access online things for them. I won’t do it and tell them either live in your bubble and don’t accept the modern world and accept some things cannot be done like booking train tickets, buying online, sending money etc etc but do not ask me to facilitate these things for you. My mum is the exception due to age as she is 90 but even she has an iPad and internet. People in their 40s and 50s can learn and should do unless they don’t need anything which requires modern communications.

I sort of envy him , I have a love hate relationship with it all .

Aw, you're so mean - would it really hurt you so much to just print out the internet for them and pop it over to their home in a few dozen removal lorries?!

Do you claim Universal Credit? I'd be interested to hear how people navigate that without internet access!