A total of 7 devices in my household are connected to the internet. Most of them belong to me.
I don’t know much about the stats of our internet usage. I don’t keep track of it, nor do I pay for it; I just consume it!
Here’s what my provider tells me:
Screenshot of my household’s current data usage. Looks like I need to go on several TV show binges.
It seems like we’ve got an overwhelming amount of data… Perhaps we’re not using the internet to its fullest potential.
My mum is the only family member who doesn’t access the internet. It’s not that she doesn’t own a connectable device. Nor is it that she doesn’t have the knowledge. She just doesn’t feel a need to use the internet. What a strange, foreign feeling I could never imagine having. She considers it time-consuming (what an understatement) and prefers other, more ‘traditional’ modes of entertainment and communication.
So, that leaves the rest of my family. Each of us are ‘connected’, but not all ‘networked’. I’m the only one who owns devices which have been synced with others. One time I showed my dad how to stream YouTube videos from his phone to the TV, but I know for a fact that he’ll never ask me again. “It’s too complicated.”
We each have different purposes for the internet.
My dad and brother are quite fond of the YouTube application on our TV. It’s the only app they access. My brother is a big fan of football, and chooses to watch lots of replays and highlights. My dad is interested in history, politics and Turkish dramas. Perhaps being connected to the internet in the living room, compared to the study, adds a more relaxed aspect to their experience. For them, this experience is leisure.
Smart TV YouTube application (source)
My use of the internet is social, academic, and leisure. I’ve connected my social networks on each device: iPod, phone, laptop. I rely on the internet for research and for keeping up with my classes. My phone is my laptop when I want to browse in bed. There’s no escaping this reliance because it has become a necessity.
Paul Miller spent a year without the internet. He found the first few months to be cleansing; it relieved him of so much stress believed to have been caused by his online presence. No more flooded inboxes. No cats. No tabs. But in the lead up to resuming his virtual life, Miller reflected that the internet wasn’t the source of his problems.
“I confused the issue…it was internal more than it was external”
While I don’t consider my reliance as intense as Miller’s, the internet is my homie. I experience it differently to my family. We each ‘connect’ in our own ways. It may make me ‘disconnected’ from the physical place of my home, but the virtual world is a part of my reality as much as my reality is a part of the virtual world.
Ms. Communication 