Wednesday 3 September 2008

Internet Dependency

I had a shock yesterday. My Internet suddenly stopped working. I had a suspicion that I may have been cut off early. I’m moving in a couple of weeks, and I gave them the required notice. Two weeks ago. I should have realised that something was amiss when a letter from them arrived in my (snail) mail box, addressed “Dear New Homeowner,”. I rang their customer services department, who assured me it had not been cut off. I then contacted their technical department who said it had been cut off. Someone jumped the gun. The ISP is blaming the line provider and the line provider is saying it isn’t them – which is probably true, as my phone still works.
Sure, I can still get on-line at work, but should I be using work’s time and cyber space for my own work? For my writing, perhaps. After all, they employ me because I am a writer. But I don’t feel I can dwell on those messages form my various writers’ forums. Then there are all those silly little things you have to get your head around. For example, I need to get an electronic version of a book over to my publisher. It isn’t on the memory stick I have with me now. I must remember to copy it there tomorrow and bring it with me to send.
How can I safely check my Internet banking? And that trawl through the Net, looking for publishing and marketing opportunities? Okay, so perhaps we rely on it too much. But what we used to use is not longer there or too expensive. It’s a bit like the way all car insurers and break-down services rely on customers having a mobile phone. You’re stuck without it.
How can we still be so primitive? I live within a two minute walk of a big university. And no, I will not go out at night with a heavy lap top. I live in a vibrant city. Broadband should ooze through the walls. BT engineers should crawl like ants all over the area. If they don’t, it should be because everything is running smoothly. It takes but a few seconds to flip a switch.
And here I am cut off. All the best laid plans. It was organised so that we would have an overlap. Now, we’ll have a deficit.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I read just yesterday about a new state of stress called discomgooglation. So many have apparently become "addicted" to the internet, that once cut off they are left in a very bad way.
Article is here

Gill James said...

Yes. I don' think I'm thta bad though. I don't get the shakes because I haven't surfed. There are some practical things I need to do and because we do have the Internet, some of the old ways of doing this have been discontinued.
There is soemhting similar, too for mobile pnones, I beleive. I love being without my mobile - in fact it's switched to "office" practically all of the time.