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

One person's experience would be uninteresting.
A whole community going offline, or a range of different people in different settings would be more insightful.
It is nothing like preinternet days because society relies on internet now. Those of us who remember how things used to be have a headstart, eg we own paper maps and paper address books.

I can’t imagine it being that interesting really (sorry) Also, by checking in once a day, you’re not really giving up the internet anyway 🤷‍♀️

It is nothing like preinternet days because society relies on internet now.

Yes - I think the people saying "well, I grew up without the internet" are missing the point - I did as well but I wasn't missing anything because it didn't exist in the first place 🙈

So much of life is online now - paying bills, doing taxes, watching television, listening to music, doing the food shop, communicating with schools or businesses. I would personally find it very difficult (and stressful) to even try and live without the internet now.

For those who don't buy your book, here's the short version: It's doable; it's difficult; you miss out on some things but you get more time for other things; a lot of people will think you are weird.

If you were living totally off grid (no power etc) for a year in a wooden hut somewhere out in the wild then that would be an interesting read.

Off line is off line. No internet/ email / smart phone/ apps at all. It's like people who claim they don't watch TV but still watch netflix, they're lying to themselves.

My advice, for this kind of trade book, would be to work with an agent. See what kind of response you get. They will know the market much better than most and if they think the idea has legs, they will shape a proposal, possibly different versions of it, with you which corresponds to what publishers want to see.
Competing titles do demonstrate a market, but they can also be a turn-off. A book like this would need a major (expensive) publicity push to fulfil its promise, so editors and publicists need to feel confident that they will be able to explain very clearly in a short pitch to review editors what is distinctive about it. (They would also need to be sure that you can take an active hand in promoting the book, drawing on an established platform - they will want to know how many followers do you have on X, etc.) I imagine you would use the one-year personal experience as an enveloping narrative structure to draw people into the real core of the book, i.e. your exploration of screen culture, and I don't think that is enough of a hook - don't get me wrong, it's a good hook, but you need something else alongside. Don't rely on this. Is the originality going to lie in how you synthesise existing research? Will you unearth a provocative, sophisticated, strong guiding argument that others haven't yet (i.e. more than that the internet is a life-sucking trap - no offence)?
Honestly, I wouldn't do it if your motivation is writing about it. It will be hard to hide that from readers, and if they do get wind of it, it will throw the legitimacy of your conclusions into question. The motivation should be a personal or an academic curiosity. (Patrick Bringley's All the Beauty in the World is probably a good model.)
Very best of luck.

Oh also: don't forget that part of the value of the book would lie in showing readers how they can drastically reduce internet use. If you don't attempt to go screen-free in your freelance work, you'd be cutting off much of the readership who'd be curious about creative ways of tackling the really hard challenges. Not being on social media is one level of difficulty that I think we all know how to cope with, but working without internet is a totally different, and really interesting, ballgame.

I have just asked Alexa if we really need the internet and my 14 year old daughter just asked if zebra can eat eggs haha good luck with no internet but it does sound a bit shit

Offline completely. I was 100% offline for a week in summer and it was far more difficult than I expected it to be. Not because of the urge to use the internet, but not having an app available when paying for parking as the card reader was broken. A lot more is online than I realised.

Good luck for your 2025!

no internet at all OP, though I think the book might be more suitable to write 40 years in the future. I've lived half my life offline, it would be a boring read. But I suppose you could always find a slant, it needs just something a little bit extra? What I don't know, but something.

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?

This would be quite far down my list of concerns, tbh.

@TunipTheVegimal24

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...?

My first job in the 1980s was working in an insurance brokers. The insurance clerks had huge books provided by the various insurance companies that they would look in to get the quotes. They would then phone up the insurance companies to see if they could better the offer in their quote books.