First, I'm an older person, retirement age, and I didn't grow up with the internet or smartphones or any of this information overload shit. I didn't even get a cellphone until 2010, and I only got a smartphone this year.
Nevertheless, I've always been fascinated by computers, and bought one of the first available PCs when they came out. That machine cost me $3500, and the printer cost me $800. No shit. They were expensive then.
I wasn't one of the first to go online (got on in 1996), but I immediately saw the potential in it. I used to as a tool, met some nice people, and connected with unknown relatives while doing a genealogy. But soon, I went through some problems and the internet became my escape mechanism. I'm a knowledge junkie, so I rationalized it by saying I was learning stuff.
I got a break from it every day because I had a job I had to go to. Then, I lost my job. I turned to the internet community for help and discovered freelancing. Then I discovered I could get free entertainment online (maybe not completely legal, but free) when I could not longer afford my satellite t.v.
I've tried so hard to break away from it, but when you depend on something for your livelihood, it's not that easy. I've even considered cutting off the internet at my house and working at the library, but the way I work, it's not possible because I have to be up at insane hours to get online to get work, and the library isn't open then, neither are the buses running.
I just downgraded from 50mbps to 5mbps in an attempt to keep myself from watching so much streaming t.v. Guess what? It works well at that speed. So much for that. It does keep me from watching live shows, though, because of excessive buffering. I've tried in vain to stay away from Reddit, and I have a lot of other things I could do, but I am easily distracted, so here I am again.
I wish I could just quit the internet completely, like those people you hear about who do it for year, but I have bills to pay, so it's never going to happen.
I'm so depressed. I feel like it's ruining what's left of my life, because I have no willpower to just work and turn it off.
Submitted August 04, 2017 at 05:15PM by anybodyanywhere http://ift.tt/2ubRKF3
