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Am I Jonesing for the Internet?

I’m feeling a little agitated and jittery today. My internet access is down due to some nasty snow and wind. Are the two related? They might be. I know I’m certainly missing my twitter friends and feeling less in touch with the world.


How long is this weather going to hold? I can’t look that up. Sure, I could pull out a radio and listen in, if I had one. I might somewhere, but I’m at the mercy of the broadcaster to decide when to report the weather and how much of it to report.


Some argue that internet access should be a basic human right. Does this point of view hold water? I suppose it could be argued that since the internet allows us to draw together into a larger community that it is an essential part of improving the human condition. Its use in political organizing and to connect dissidents in repressive regimes can certainly help make the case for it as a basic human right.


Is the jitteriness really from not having the internet? My doctor did just increase my dose of modafinil, and my body might be reacting to the increase in alertness and stimulation. Last time I was off the net for a while I didn’t jones like this, so maybe it is indeed the medication. I’m not sure.


But am I just trying to justify an unhealthy dependence on the internet? Perhaps. I’m isolated due to my lack of driver’s license and rural location, however, and rarely have any sort of other connection to humanity. Apart from Sophie, that is. So is my reliance on the internet unhealthy? I can’t give you a real answer to that. All I know is that right now I feel a need to connect with good friends and inform myself about the world. I can’t say that that’s entirely unhealthy.

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Comments

A.G. said…
I think that Twitter answers a basic human need to glean "social information" from humans around us. The only difference is on Twitter they aren't all in our immediate surroundings, but that only adds breadth and depth to the experience of being "in the know" about the general "moral climate" in a given network.

With that being said, I don't think that if you had an internet addiction, that it's at the end of the year, 2009, that you would realize it. How long have you been connected, like since the very first land-line modem connections existed in North America? Surely you have been without a connection before?

For the record.. I rely on the library and a place nearby for web access, and they've all been closed since the end of last week.. Now it is Monday. Did I to do some Jonesing? You bet! And I can affirm that it is not a dependence in my case, unless being profoundly human is an addiction.

Sincerely,

Alex
January 4, 2010 at 3:54 PM
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