Old Computer Challenge 2024, Recap
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So, how did it go, being without mobile Internet for a whole
week?  Quite well, as it turned out.

In a certain way, I guess you could say I was playing OCC on
easy mode, in that no actual old computers were involved.
The only challenge was behavioural.  Could I voluntarily
curtail my use of mobile Internet for a whole week, while
access was literally right there in my pocket the whole
time?  Turns out the answer was, for the most part, yes.
And it wasn't even that difficult, although a certain amount
of vigilance was involved, as I absentmindedly reached for
my phone multiple times a day (intending to check my email,
check for Mastodon updates, look up some random factoid on
the web, read the news, etc, etc).

The trick was to recognize that I am in fact a compulsive
reader, and always have been long before the Web was a
thing, and to deal with that in the same way I did before it
became impossible to be "away from the Internet."  Which is
to say, always have a book with me.  And wow, did my fiction
consumption go way, way up this week.  Finished two novels
(Gibson's "Spook Country" and Stross's "The Atrocity
Archives") and the better part of a third (Weir's
"Artemis").  Plus I finally figured out the right
combination of Proton version and game settings to coax "Her
Story" to run on my home computer, so I started and finished
that too.  (As an aside, that game feels like it was
targetted directly at librarians such as myself.  I mean,
gameplay is you search a database over and over again using
different search strategies to piece together a narrative
and solve a mystery?  Yeah, I liked it a lot).

Was I completely successful?  Well, no.  I did cave a couple
of times, when I needed to consult Google Maps, or check my
schedule before I got into work (although I guess you could
say that was work-related, so maybe allowable within the
rules).  But I'm pleased to report I was 100% successful
curtailing my Internet rabbit-holing, and that was for me
the goal of this exercise.

Still need to work through whether and how my experience
this past week will affect my behaviour going forward.
There is no question that being mostly unplugged from the
mobile Internet was good for my mental health, stress levels
and overall quality of life.  At the same time, I do like to
know what's going on in the world, and keep up with my
various online communities.  Perhaps a weekend mobile
moratorium?

In the meanwhile, I'm now looking forward to September, when
I will be doing ROOPHLOCH for the first time, and which I
also intend to play on ridiculously easy mode. But at least
it will involve (somewhat) older computing hardware.

Sat Jul 20 12:52:18 PDT 2024