The Internet Fast: Week 1

I'm four days into my forty days of reduced internet consumption, and since I'm sure Donkeylicious readers are dying to know how this has been going, I thought I'd put out a brief status report.

• The bus ride to and from work is now really, really, boring. This makes me think that transit advocates should thank Steve Jobs on a daily basis. I think next week I will add "email" to the list of approved smartphone activities, but also start bringing a dead tree book with me on the bus.
• The increase in idle moments at home is being consumed by a combination of more household maintenance (that's a fancy way of saying "chores & errands"), cooking slightly more elaborate dinners, and snuggling.
• There's also been an increase in the consumption of mediocre TV & movies through Netflix. Sometimes this results in good clean fun, like Cutthroat Island. But sometimes it's just having something on the TV to have something on the TV. Reducing Netflix consumption to only items received by mail might make this challenge more interesting.
• I also feel that I've been a little more productive at work, though it's hard to disentangle the observance of Lent from other organizational changes that have given me a little bit more to do on a day-to-day basis.
• I don't feel like I miss Twitter that much. I think my twitter feed is about 10% "links to stories I might have otherwise missed" and 90% "snark from people whose writings I already read". Upon reflection, the latter is just an outlet and doesn't actually add much to my life.
• I definitely miss the blogs that didn't "make the cut". Things like Lawyers, Guns, & Money, Same Facts, 11D, etc., are largely duplicative of other news sources, but each one produces enough distinct content that I do feel like I'm missing out. And the personae attached to those blogs have a lot of appeal to me.
• I miss some, but not all, of the forums that I read and/or post to. Mostly it's the ones where I have some personal connection to other forum members.