Off the wagon

So, that’s me back from my digital sabbatical, though, to be honest, it wasn’t really one of those straight-edge digital sabbaticals that one reads about, since I took my cellphone (though I did manage to cut down my usual rate of calling and texting), and I only gave up the mobile internet because I was in a region remote enough to have no wi-fi hotspots, and prohibitively expensive data roaming charges.

Still, I’ve come back with a renewed appreciation of life off the grid. I was a bit restless for the first couple of days, but after that I hardly missed it at all, and passed my time at a leisurely pace, reading books, listening to music, thinking, writing a little, and even doing some exercise.

I had just about convinced myself that I wasn’t really addicted to the internet after all, but, I’m sad to say, I hadn’t been home more than a few hours before I succumbed to the temptation to quickly check my blog stats, then while I was online I thought I might as well see what people were saying on Facebook… and it was all downhill from there. Last night I spent three hours watching Beavis and Butt-head clips on YouTube. Rapid reinstatement indeed.

Strangely enough I haven’t had any notion to visit Second Life yet. Perhaps the pleasures of SL are too rarefied to give me the quick fix I’m looking for; it’s a fine malt compared with the bathtub gin of social media.