What? No Internet?

 

Blog 22

Following the recent hack of the Colonial Pipeline and its revelatory impact (under duress, too many of us appear to subscribe to every man for himself), a good friend asked me to contemplate the possible effect of a similar interruption to the Internet on writers. I approached this consideration from two angles: 1) with access to the Net and 2) without it.

Access to the Net: Acknowledging the many advantages of the Internet, too numerous to try to enumerate, I have two thoughts to offer about the possible effect of loss with the Net. First, it enables us to escape the solitary, often hard task of writing. How many of us do this, sacrificing the balance of time between writing and everything else? Let me see – I need to check my email. Ooh, ooh, I’ve just got to respond to this one and – and maybe only two, okay, no more than three others. And while I’m at it, I need to clear my email of everything else. Oh, let me take a quick peek at today’s news while I’m at it, maybe read one, I promise just one, long article. Oh my goodness, it’s almost lunch time. Okay, I promise myself, no interruptions while I write this afternoon.

Second, the Net presents us a shortcut to a repository of endless but not always reliable “facts.” Example: In examining a bio of an NBA player from Slovenia, Vlatko Cancar (don’t ask), on the same site he was listed as 6’11, 6’9 and 6’8. Was he still growing before my incredulous eyes? Or was he possibly diminishing, depending upon which direction I approached his personal data? My point: These easy-to-find facts can lull us in our quest for research exactitude.

Without access to the Net: In this instance, I’d like to offer two musings about possible Net loss. First, while we’d be freer to pursue writing without the temptation to escape into the Net, would we? Or would we be temporarily immobilized, at a loss to replace our electronic habit (escape)? Worse, would we just feel lost?

Second, for those of us at least old enough to remember, would we return to researching facts the far more time consuming “old way” – through book bibliographies and library card catalogues – or would we, again, find ourselves diverting into a new form of escapism, possibly even inventing one?

Me? I’d likely return to my first love and pick up a book while the Net recovered. After all, as writers, that’s how we got here, right? It would be like throwing B’rer Rabbit once more into the briar patch. Loss? No more than briefly. Lost? No way.