One year, no internet- what’s reasonable?

[Mustlovebronte]

Hello and merry Christmas! I am thinking of quitting the internet for one year and pitching a non-fiction book/long form articles about the experience. This has been mulling in my head for the last few years and for different reasons 2025 would be an ideal time to do it. Similar to Ultra Processed People, I feel like companies have sucked us all into this insidious, life- sucking trap. I want to experience and write about the good, the bad, and the ugly of our digital world by using myself as a test subject (as well as getting expert opinion/latest research). My question is, if you were to pick up a book like this, would you expect the author to go offline completely and work around the inconveniences, or would you consider it reasonable that they checked their email and WhatsApp once per day (as an example). I am self employed but most customers email me which is something I would need to work around (and nothing's impossible). I guess I want to gauge what people would consider ‘cheating’. Thanks for reading and really looking forward to any opinions xx

If you want to do it, go for it, but I can't imagine a book, unless you are a very talented writer, would be particularly interesting.

"I wanted to order a pizza today, so I used the landline... and ordered a pizza..."

I'd expect no email. Sometimes I imagine ditching my smart phone but without email I would struggle in the modern world and I'd love to see how someone would do that.

WhatsApp would definitely be cheating. Text or get a landline!

Tbh if I were to read a book about this kind of thing I'd expect no internet and no smart phone.

I think this is an interesting book idea but if and only if you plan to stop using the internet. Which means no internet, obviously. A book about fancying quitting the internet while actually checking WhatsApp once a day would be supremely boring.

I haven’t RTFT, but would recommend the excellent book The Way Home by Mark Boyle. He goes beyond giving up the internet, he takes his whole life off grid and lives with no technology at all. Fascinating and very thought provoking.

Was just coming to say the same thing!

Also that I'd be interested in your book xx

Sounds like the incredibly smug articles in newspapers about how somebody 'didn't spend a penny all year' - but was already living for free in a place in central London where someone else paid for the council tax, electricity, gas, insurance and water bills, had 'friends' giving them designer clothes, shoes and food, had a fully functioning vegetable garden with a gardener who could magic up hundreds of pounds of plants and seeds out of nothing when not removing all pests by hand, could walk to work and in extremis, there was always an arts exhibition they could stroll into where they'd be given champagne and oysters for free.

You can't do it. You need it for bank accounts, for benefits, for tax, for shopping, for taking cash out, for getting the lower prices at the supermarket, for booking doctor's appointments, paying for prescriptions, for getting test results, for work, for leisure.

Even the so called off-gridders have internet access - it's how they make their money.

I suppose it would be quite interesting to see how someone would get on doing this in 2024/2025.

My parents never used the internet in their lives, although in their last couple of years I helped them by using the internet on their behalf - eg booking medical appointments and online shopping. And this was before 2020 when a lot more things probably moved online.

Probably an interesting project but not sure how successful writing about it would be. Maybe a retrospective blog!

I think if you're going to do this you have to do it properly. Set an auto-reply on your email to tell people it won't be read and they have to telephone or write to you instead.

One workaround might be to have your emails forwarded to a friend who is willing to help you by printing them out to send on to you.

How would you pitch it without the internet?

Also, if you have any kids it's impossible as all their schooling and health details require access. Schools now provide low income families with access.

If you're not a parent it would be possible, but difficult.

Thinking about this, if you had a raspberry pi you'd probably be able to hook it up to a printer and have it check your email once a day and print out your emails for you.

But you have less than a week to say that up and test it...

I like things like this I would find it really interesting but it would have to be completely offline. Good luck with it and hopefully you can come back in 2026 and let us know how it's gone

I just don't see the point to be honest? Unless you were going to say regress your life to living authentically in 1950 or earlier. Then I can't see the excitement of it as a reading subject. I lived up until my early 20s without really using the internet. It wasn't exactly that much of a hassle as everyone was in the same boat.

You need it for bank accounts, for benefits, for tax, for shopping, for taking cash out, for getting the lower prices at the supermarket, for booking doctor's appointments, paying for prescriptions, for getting test results, for work, for leisure.

Some of those would depend on whether you 'count' a third party using the internet to facilitate you using a manual service. E.g.

Withdrawing cash over the counter in the bank (where the bank will be using the internet to provide that service).

Shopping - if you count the shop's till using the internet.

Doctor's appointments - can book by phone but will go on online system.

Prescriptions - can get a paper one and pay cash, but see tills above.

How far do you take it? Say you said you'd only shop in markets where the cash gets shoved in a cash bag rather than put through a till - but somewhere in the supply chain and accounting chain, the internet will be involved.

To be completely free of the internet you'd probably have to be self-sufficient or join a self-sufficient commune.

The answer is, it depends.

If you write an interesting book, it's a good idea. If you write a tedious book, it's a bad idea.

There's nothing intrinsically good or bad about your idea as such, although if you do it you need to commit to it 100% or what's the point. The fact that you didn't realise that doesn't make me confident about your instincts to write a good book.

No, that's obviously cheating. The conceit is, you make no use of the internet. The problems it causes you are the meat of the book

The irony if your book becomes available as an e-book or downloadable audiobook.

It would be easy for the writer to fall into the trap of cliches. You do see articles where journalists have given up their smartphone for a week, or stayed off all social media, and frankly, if you've read one, you've read them all. OP could really do with some kind of 'angle' for her project.

You will spend half the time trying to find ways to do the things you use the internet for, instead of in writing this book.

And of course you can't check emails or WhatsApp if you're offline, so you'd need to ask all your clients to call you instead. You wouldn't be able to send clients contracts or invoices by email, they would have to go by snail mail, which would eventually cause cash flow issues.

Have you thought this idea through properly???

You’ve got to do it completely or what’s the point? Can we live in 2025 as a working member of society without using the internet? I’d be surprised if you could do it so if you did manage it then I’d read your book. But if you are checking emails every day - nope. No interest from me.

Yes, totally offline (sorry!). The Super Size and Super Slim me people went all out and committed, which is what made it interesting. If the Super Size guy had a homecooked meal, instead of McDonald's, when it was more convenient, you wouldn't be able to see how the effects on his body were exclusively coming from the fast food. So in your case, say your mental health would be improved by being offline (for example), you might not experience this, if you're still looking at emails. So your findings would be "invalid", as much as an anecdotal experiment could be valid or invalid.

If you're an engaging writer with plenty of 'emotional honesty' and a good instinct for what people love to hear, it could be a goer. I mean, one of the all-time blockbusters is a guy moving to the South of France and being constantly surprised by how French it is 😂

There are still quite a lot of people living off-grid in the UK, never mind the one-third of the world that still has no connectivity (or only 2G mobile). You'll have to do it for real - unlike Hari - or they'll all be out writing proper letters to the papers, which they read in physical form. There will be some challenges. Have you even got a cheque book, for instance? I reckon you could do telephone payments - if you can still get a landline (or buy a satphone??) and you can use your bank cards, as the shop's using the internet but you aren't.

I've been thinking lately that I ought to go back to writing letters by hand, on paper. You're post's raised my enthusiasm - I might make it a NY resolution!

So much is now done online that I really don't think we can put the genie back in the lamp, unless there is some kind of cataclysmic event. Pretty much all bank stuff is online, especially given the amount of bank closures. Do you shop around for insurance quotes? How do you propose to do that without the internet?
Unless you have an active community and get trades in by word of mouth how will you check reviews if you need some work doing?
If it's just social media, I don't think you'd get a wide enough audience. If you were totally offline, I'd definitely be interested, because unless you live completely off grid, I'm not sure how easy it would be to just be offline, but if you looked at your emails, then i'd consider that cheating!

How DID people get insurance quotes before the internet?? Smartphones were commonplace by the time I had my first car. Ring them up maybe? Presumably they had people on the phones in the past then? How did the people the other end know what deals they could give you...? 🤯

I’d struggle to even find phone numbers for places without the internet let alone medical appointments , household accounts , travel insurance etc

The conceit isn't that you live like a hermit. It's that you don't use the internet. What I suggested is essentially a way to convert emails to letters, but it doesn't do the reverse. You'd still have to write or phone in order to reply.

If you really wanted to be a purist about it then you wouldn't be able to use a landline phone either. BT have been converting the landline network to run over the internet for years, and that work is nearly complete.