The most glaring thing about this article to me is that I didn’t find the author having mentioned that he had any significant offline relationships prior to taking a year off. I mean, he encounters various people under an array of pretenses throughout the article, but I can’t help but wonder what his issue could have been with connecting with people without the internet with these different encounters taking place within the year. In this sense, the story as an experience raises more questions than it answers because I don’t know the guy.
But at the same time, this account fits right in with more recent ones that I’ve come across about how difficult it is for people to find social networks offline, particularly for young men (I think the author was in his late 20s when this was published?).
I feel like the difficulty of finding social networks offline is an effect of the availability of online connections, something that I noticed a lot during the pandemic.
Whenever I talk to people who are much older than me it strikes me how much work and effort goes into the maintenance of their offline social networks. The non-existence (to some older folks) of online social networks doesn't stop them from maintaining relationships, often over the same long distances. It is, like you say, a matter of forming those relationships instead of maintaining them that is getting harder.
What I ask myself about this article is if and how the outcome would be different almost 10 years on. "Digital Detox" of course is a thing but rarely if ever does it go beyond a couple weeks, maybe a month. Would we now also see this sort of "diminishing returns" that are also described in the article? Would we experience them faster?
"By late 2012, I'd learned how to make a new style of wrong choices off the internet. I abandoned my positive offline habits, and discovered new offline vices."
Yeah that's what I thought as well, especially when he mentioned how people before would just sit in front of the tv instead of online.
Still, I'm not sure if it makes a difference how easily accessible the specific bad habits are. I have a tv at home and can watch it specifically there, but I carry my online bad habits around with me all the time, available at the slightest hint of boredom.
I think it's that idea that everyone has a great book/project in them if they only had TIME, free from distraction. But the reality is that they probably don't, even if given the opportunity! Slightly depressing TBH. Shows motivation and will is ultimately more important and things like the internet are just a comforting excuse.
But at the same time, this account fits right in with more recent ones that I’ve come across about how difficult it is for people to find social networks offline, particularly for young men (I think the author was in his late 20s when this was published?).