My Day of Web Interactions

After logging my internet use for an entire day, it became incredibly more blatant how ingrained the internet is in my daily routine, especially on the weekends. I would wake up and immediately start scrolling Instagram or TikTok before realizing that two hours had disappeared. It seems that every action was linked to the internet. Much like Anna Prushinskaya, who documented her own issues with overusing technology in “The Quantified Baby“, I depended on the access to the web. If I wanted to call a friend, email a professor, listen to music, attend a virtual club meeting, or watch a show, I would need WiFi or cellular data. Even the alarm I use will not function without a stable connection.

While Internet access makes certain tasks easier—finding academic journals or discovering a new show to binge—there is a problem with being reliant on such a tool. Recently, I’ve been experiencing serious tropical storms that disrupt my internet connection, which doesn’t sound like a disastrous thing until I realized that I cannot do my normal tasks. For example, if a scientist maintained an online scientific journal where they documented all of their observations for a six-month project with a reflection due in two days but the site crashed, they would not be able to read any of their notes until the situation was addressed; however, had they kept a physical journal, they would be able to continue to work per usual. In my case, I use an online calendar that is sort of hard to follow, always directs me into an internet rabbit hole, and would leave me discombobulated if I ever lost access. Instead, I could purchase a physical one that keeps me engaged in my work. Essentially, while the internet is great for accomplishing large-scale collaborative tasks in a timely fashion, we take for granted just how large of an influence it is on our lives. Not every moment has to be a digital one.