Evenings without the Internet

”Hey, why didn’t you come to my birthday party?”

”Sorry dude, but I didn’t have an idea.”

“How is that possible? I invited you on Facebook.”

“I don’t  have the Iinternet at home.”

“What????!!!!”

All right, I know that nowadays this conversation might seem quite nonsense and the question “how is that possible” fits very well. But seriously, have you ever think about not having the Internet at home? No? So let me draw out my story.

It’s been three years since we moved from a city near Prague to the country. It was a radical change of living. I was fifteen and, like the most of other teenagers, addicted to the Internet. I used to spend hours by chattering via ICQ and my favorite page was Youtube.  But suddenly I was cut off the outside world. We’ve started to build a big farm and my parents decided not to have the Internet there. They said that we had a possibility to serf on the Internet at school or in our second house in a city and that we didn’t need it. They were nearly right but I hated the image of “lonely” evenings without the Internet. Some of my friends even said thet they would die.I know that this whole decision was made just in order not to stay at home all the time when there is fresh air and nature all around but it was tough for everyone.

But it needs some time and even the most inflexible person get used to anything so, in spite of the fact how funny it might seem,  I’m now really glad and fine without the Internet because it made me  find out that I don’t need it all the time. Yes, I can’t sum the whole Internet up into the social networks and staff. I know that the Internet is necessary for school but I learnt to check my mails and facebook at school and anytime I need to find something for school I also use school computers. It feels good to know that you lack one addiction that the others have and I also know that if I had the Internet I would waste the little rest of my free time to the prejudice of  important things. We all know what social networks are like. It’s the most common drug all among  young people. It’s hard to admit that but you must be a really strong person to give yourself a limit for chattering and surfing and then just bail, switch off the Internet and do what is important. So it’s easier to have nothing to resist, isn’t it? No, I know, it's not just black and white.

On the other hand it gets a bit annoying to keep explaining over and over again how it is possible that I can’t be on facebook at night etc.  It would be silly to claim that I’ve never regretted not having the Internet. I really did, many times, and especially when I needed some staff for school I had forgotten doing before. But those were only temporal regrets.

I know that to some of you, whose active time of the day ends with the last ringing at school, the idea of not having the Internet must seem weird and unimaginable. But in fact I’m so busy of learning, tutoring, training volleyball, cleaning the house, feeding sheep and other animals that the situation when I would wonder about the Internet when I am at home happens quite rarely. I do have still so much to do.

In conclusion I must say that the claim: ”Everything is easier with the Internet” is not exactly right. I thing that particularly for young people it should be added by: “if you know how to arrange your time” . It shouldn’t happen that people waste their time on the Internet doing nothing to the prejudice of something important. And we also shouldn’t take the virtual friendship so seriously or we get into the situation when even though we have 500 facebook friends we have no-one to hang out with because we are all stuck and chattering in front of the computer. And you know online chat is incomparable with a live chatter.

So due to the tough change, that happened to me and limited my options of using the Internet, I’m much free, don’t have an Internet addiction (but still serf whenever I want and need to), spend time in the fresh air and hang out with my friends much often that I would ever done if I could have chatter with them also.

So less can be sometimes more, can’t it?