I have been inspired to undertake a personal experiment. I am going to attempt the possible and give up the internet for 5 days. From the morning of Wednesday September 3rd, 2008 until Monday the 8th my laptop will be internet free.

Why, you might ask, am I doing this? A more cromulent question might revolve around why I’m telling you this. Never the less I shall only attempt to answer the first question.

1. I want to see if I can get more done if I’m not chained to my laptop. Twitter and Google Reader seem to occupy all my free time lately.
2. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. I don’t think I’m over dependent on the web, but it would be nice to know for sure.
3. I’m tired of it. The internet, at least in the circles I’ve been traveling lately, seems to be a deafening cacophony that frankly is giving me a headache.
4. I’m hoping my desire to read, dead since college, will return to me. I’ve got a stack of books that have gone unread thanks, at least in part, to my time online.
5. By starting now this will be over by the time my preorder of Spore arrives.
6. I couldn’t sleep tonight and in my daze this seems like a good idea.

For various reasons I am going to have to make three exceptions that will wholey invalidate this as an experiment at least from a scientific standpoint. Two of these are unavoidable and the 3rd is just… because.

1. Work
   There’s no way to escape this one. I work building a web application, I have to be able to use the internet to do that. I will, however, not be using the internet for anything recreational while working. I figure the timing for this is good since all of the shows I watch on hulu are currently on hiatus.
2. Email
   Over the years email has become my primary form of remote communication. Me giving up email would cut me off from most of my friends and family.
3. Buzz Out Loud
   This is that just because I mentioned previously. Firstly, this podcast is probably my current favorite thing in all of media. Secondly, I would go a little mad without any access to tech news. A half hour a day should be enough to keep me from going completely nuts.

I thought about keeping a journal like a civil war solder. Sadly I very much doubt that this experiment will produce any results that could be called interesting no matter how bored historians get in the future. I predict I’ll get some more chores done than usual and I’ll finish reading Watchman. Other than that it will probably just be business as usual. I will post the results here on Monday at the experiment’s conclusion… or shortly there after.

After thought: There are going to be over 1,000 unread items in my Google Reader by Monday morning. That is a little freightening.