Ed Andrews: Internet days

Like the ad for Werther’s Original goes, I remember the first time we got the Internet. I was fifteen. I would sit in my parents' study, eagerly awaiting as The Offspring’s homepage assembled itself bit by bit with the modem letting out gut-wrenching squawks as if trying to curl out some digital, titanium-heavy, cyber shit – which probably isn’t too far from what it actually was doing.

It was fun and exciting. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I could watch the whole video to All I Want in a window the size of a postage stamp, while Dexter Holland’s SoCal-wailing stuttered through the 8bit soundcard. Who needed Top of the Pops when I had this?!

Nearly thirteen years have passed since then and in that time, this novelty has gone from a playground status symbol to an appendage that is about as essential as your right hand. I spend a lot of time on the Internet. As editor of this here site, ‘surfing’ (as it was once called) and then writing about it is pretty much what I do for a living.

Not that I’m complaining though, I like the Internet. There’s many reasons, but my favourites are that I don’t have to trawl the open-air asylum that is Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon when I want to buy stuff; I don’t have to search for a crusty booklet in the kitchen drawer when I want to get a train somewhere; and when I want to make friends with someone, I don’t have to talk to, look at, listen to, drink with or generally interact with them in any way whatsoever! Now, in just a few clicks, it’s all done for me. It saves me loads of time, time that I can then use to watch videos of fat kids falling off swings, illegally download poor quality films and insult complete strangers on forums.

However, last week, while I was away in the French Alps helping out on a film shoot (of which you will hear more about very soon), I was torn away from this constant comfort blanket. My laptop and the hotel wifi didn’t see eye to eye and so I was reduced to buying credit at an Internet café in hourly slots. Trying to send emails, write blogs and read the Guardian all while a countdown timer incessantly mocks you doesn’t make for a satisfying ‘surf’.

I was alarmed by how much this troubled me though. I expected to not be bothered by it, and instead go out and enjoy the mountain views and look at the tacky gift shops. But this enforced semi-exile made me feel very disconnected from the world. Isolated, uncomfortable and anxious. I realised that this novelty from yesteryear had crept up on me and tricked me into being its bitch. That’s not cool.

Now I’m back in London, I can ‘surf’ wherever and whenever I please. And I have been doing so. The Internet is a fact of life and it’s only going to become more so. But this brief banishment has made me realise that it’s good to step away and do some real living without digital back up, and remember the times when a dimly lit screen wasn’t the main portal to the real world.

Also, I just watched that Offspring video on YouTube. It isn’t that good anyway.

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Internet days (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.