Social Media, Social Networking Websites, Technology

Test Case: Can I Survive A Week Without Surfing The Internet?

Please welcome our newest columnist, Allison Peryea, and check out her column's fun concept.

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Allison Peryea

Allison Peryea

Ed. note: Please welcome our newest columnist, Allison Peryea. In each “Test Case” column, she’ll play “human guinea pig” and describe her attempt to try out things that attorneys are advised or expected to do — or not to do.

My name is Allison Peryea, and I am an internet-surfing addict.

It started innocently enough my first year of law school, when I was parked in front of a laptop 39 hours a day and a friend introduced me to the “Fashion Police” feature on People.com. It was a taste of mental cotton candy after a psychological diet of nothing but cases about subject-matter jurisdiction and people getting maimed by trains. Then smartphones came along and I never had to spend a single minute alone with my own thoughts.

These days I can’t watch a show on Netflix without simultaneously taking a “Which Hogwarts House Do You Belong In?” Buzzfeed quiz on my iPad (answer: Ravenclaw). I start every morning at work with a Greek yogurt and a half hour skimming online newspaper headlines. I reward myself between projects throughout the day with a hit of Slate articles alternately bashing and praising Hillary Clinton.

But I didn’t realize I had a problem until recently. I noticed that first thing in the morning when my kitty, Kitty, wants to snuggle, I avoid her. I don’t want her to interfere with my need to catch up on all the “Share if you love your cousin” Facebook posts I missed overnight from people I never spoke to in high school.

I was drowning during my recreational internet-surfing sessions. I decided to try to take a week off, with the caveat that I could use the internet for actual research and to post on my law firm’s Facebook page, which features compelling tidbits on the fascinating world of community association law.

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On my first day going cold turkey, as soon as I turned off my alarm and set my phone down, I almost instinctively picked it back up for my morning Facebook scroll. At work, when my vintage computer was slow to open a document, I kept impulsively moving my mouse toward Google’s beckoning color wheel. At first my lack of access made me bored. Then I got angry. How dare I be forced to sit in silence for a few seconds that otherwise could be filled with celebrity gossip?

When our tech guy came in that morning to replace my computer, which is so old its processor is a tiny caveman scratching out commands on a rock, my no-surfing rule required me to actually have a conversation with a human while he swapped out the machines. It turns out Don the Tech Guy actually has a life outside of fixing computer-y stuff we break. Who would have thought?

My lunchtime trip to the gym exposed me to the horrors of riding in an elevator with a stranger without the option to stare at my phone screen. The awkwardness seemed to have its own physical presence.

At the grocery checkout that night, I hungrily consumed the tabloid headlines. Thus fortified, I only used the internet that night to confirm to my boyfriend, Jesse, that he has been mispronouncing the word “pronunciation” his entire life. The irony compelled it.

Since my face wasn’t buried in my phone that first evening, I was able to note that Jesse was crying at the end of the Parenthood finale. It gave me an opportunity to tease the crap out of him that I otherwise would have missed. We finished the day by snuggling Kitty during a moment so poignant, I almost forgot I hate the word poignant.

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I had a big test on day four of this challenge: a state bar committee meeting, typically fertile ground for a heady day of internet surfing under the pretext of responding to work emails. My internet “freeze” compelled me to converse with my fellow committee members rather than goof around on the Web. I returned to the office exhausted from all of the listening and talking, realized I had no choice but to just get to work, and made that frustrated noise children make when they are denied something they want.

I cracked that night and skimmed my Facebook notifications, which let me know that my coworkers had tagged me in a post. My experiment was making me start to feel left out.

Just when I thought I had this thing handled, I tested my resolve with two glasses of happy hour wine. Glass No. 2 tried to convince me to end this project prematurely after five business days, but I dismissed its sulfite-infused pressure in favor of destroying the plate of nachos in front of me. I basked in an undeserved sense of superiority while watching my four friends stare like zombies at their screens whenever we hit a lull in conversation.

The Verdict: My week with limited internet highlighted the fact that we have largely given up the option of just “being” these days. (I feel like I should be sitting in a rocking chair on a porch as I write this.) I am used to receiving a constant flow of information, whether at the office or waiting in line at Target. I also learned I use internet surfing to blunt the edges of what life throws my way, whether it is a creepy scene in a movie or the receipt of a well-grounded motion to vacate. I also use it, like a stereotypical Seattleite, to shield myself from unnecessary human interaction.

My little moratorium forced me to focus on my own existence and surroundings. It also seemed to free up some brain space to give me an opportunity to hang out with my own ideas and observations. While it made me more efficient at work—especially in the mornings—it introduced a lot more tension. I mean, I had to spend the entire work day being a lawyer. And it made me feel a little lonely—I missed the fun and laziness of keeping up with my family and my old dentist without having to actually interact with them. It also made me pretty clueless about what was going on in the world—turns out you can actually learn stuff when mindlessly surfing, even if you aren’t intending to do so.

I mostly returned to my old surfing habits after my no-internet streak ended. But every once in a while, I keep my phone in my pocket on the elevator, just to remind myself that I can. And when my alarm goes off, I snuggle the hell out of my cat—I figured out how to pet her with one hand and surf Instagram with the other.

Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at Allison.Peryea@leahyps.com.

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