Not to get political, so I’ll just briefly mention it: I read about the internet shutdowns in Iran… and I’ve heard about similar things in India, during times of civil unrest…
anyways, this post isn’t about politics, but the aftermath of such internet shutdown… like personally, how would people deal with it… like entertainment-wise…
Like… if the government of the country I’m living in right now, if they did this internet shutdown… I’d think I’d suffer from withdrawl and I feel like I wouldn’t be able to function…
Like… I got so used to be able to just look up any movie, tv show, anime, book, youtube video, google any information I wanted… I never prepped for an internet shutdown…
I feel like a drug addict lol… if they shut down the internet… I’m gonna have severe withdrawl symptoms…
Can most people even cope with it?
I think in Iranian case entertainment may not be their main concern at the moment.
But as far as I’ concerned most of my ‘leisure’ are offline/analog: reading (print books, magazines & newspapers), sketching, listening to music (CD, downloaded files) and watching DVD. Most of my other activities are offline too, I even write longhand before I even consider powering on a computer for the final edits/revisions.
The one game I regularly play is chess and I prefer playing it offline and against people IRL if I have the option. I willplay against a chess engine on occasions, but I don’t need to play it online. Heck, I even carry an old 1988 pocket computer chessboard. The onboard engine is weaker than weak compared to even, the worst modern chess engine but why should I care? I mean, I’m no Magnus Karlsen or Kasparov ;)
I can’t tell if you are addicted but what I can tell is that, a few years ago, upon realizing how heavily I was relying on online services and tech I decided it was essential to move back offline (and to analog/low-tech) as much of my activities as I was able to, and at the very least to not GAFAM-controled services and tools. That was a huge factor in me moving back to low-tech, even more so when combined with my growing concern with the many attempts that were and are still made to spread that erosion of our user rights toward our citizen rights (like ending any right to encryption and privacy, for example). If I can’t trust tech, I will do my best to not rely on it and to not use it.