I got home to find my internet had been cut off.  I forgot to pay the bill.  I was just about to call my broadband company to pay it and I thought “what’s urgent about needing to use the internet today?  Let’s see if I can do without it.” 

Within 30 minutes I was reaching for my laptop to google something, realizing that I wasn’t online.  Even the evening entertainment was out as I would normally catch up on TV online.  I had to find a DVD to watch. So I began to notice how dependent I now am to going online.  But it’s not the use of the internet that bothers me it’s more the unconscious automatic response of thinking of something that requires online use and instantly going to check online   So I began a little experiment to see how addicted to the internet I am.

 I counted the amount of impulses I had for online activity.  Whether it was looking something up online, sending or checking an email.  Everytime I went to reached to go online. I tallied it on a note pad. I had 5 thoughts within the 2 hours online.  So not too bad but then eventually I cheated.  I sent a tweet and checked Facebook from my HTC phone.  So I’ll count those impulses as well.

Interestingly because the apps on the phone have limited functionality compared to my laptop it is less compelling to spend a lot of time online. 

Let’s see how far this experiment will go.  My intention here is to improve my mental focus.  I’ve found with increasing internet use I have so much busy work that I could do that my mind jumps from thought to thought and my power of focus has started to drift.

 I’ll give it 24 hours and see how I go.

So I challenge you to a game.

Turn off you internet in the evening for at least 4 hours and if you are at home the whole day, turn it off for 24 hours.  Record how many times you go to use your computer online.  Then calculate how many times per hour you have an internet impulse and put your score in the comments in the blog.

Are you an internet addict?  Take The test?