How much would you miss the Internet if it crashed for several months?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I’d really miss it a lot at first. I’d get over it eventually, but it would suck. I’d still be able to play single-player computer games and watch the shows/movies I’ve already downloaded to my computer, but no more WoW for me! Without the ability to chat on message boards, I’d probably spend time at a local bar to socialize… I’d likely become at least a moderate alcoholic. I’d go back to reading books all the time.

I’d definitely miss shopping online at Amazon, a lot. I ordered some niche adult coloring books recently–mandalas, fairies, & paisley designs, on very sturdy paper–not like coloring books for kids! And the time between placing the order and having it in my hands was less than 48 hours. That’s not the kind of thing that’s easy to find just anywhere, you know? Amazon is known for best serving the “long tail” of retail, providing access to obscure stuff that the big-box stores just can’t match.

I would still have a job without the internet, since I work in insurance (which has been around much longer than computers!); however, it would be a very rocky transition. We just (within the last 6 months) upgraded to a “soft phone” which uses VOIP instead of land-line technology, so we’d have to downgrade again before we could go back to taking calls. And we’d have to budget for many more claim handling inefficiencies (not just in my office, but in all our offices), since we wouldn’t be able to instantly transmit claims or send email between offices. And paperwork! Oh, the mountains of paperwork we would be buried under!

Please don’t take away my internet, ok? :frowning:

42

Professionally I rely heavily on the 'net for both intellectual resources and movement of info. So it’d be a big blow that way.

Socially it’d be a void to fill, but I’ve gone days and weeks here and there with no net access while on vacations, and frankly didn’t miss it much once I got out of the habit. That never took more than a day or two.

43

Not even a slight bit. I take any chance I can get to be away from it for as long as possible.

While I do enjoy some things about it, I don’t need it and it doesn’t need me. I don’t participate in any social networking and e-mail is more of an annoyance to me than anything else. Libraries still exist and so does print news.

44

I would miss it a lot for entertainment and a moderate amount for work.

45

I’ve been extremely grateful for the internet all through my pregnancy. Most of my friends are male, a lot of them don’t have kids, and I’m not close enough to anybody in my family to talk to them about things like morning sickness. A lot of them have experience with pregnancy and parenting, but it happened many years ago, and some of their knowledge is outdated. I could read books about this stuff, but the internet is so useful in figuring out which ones are worthwhile and which are not- there’s a lot of crap that has been written about pregnancy and parenting. I would be having a much harder time figuring out this whole pregnancy and parenting thing without the internet. I love love love being able to find answers to my awkward, gross, or dumb questions without having to talk to anybody in person about those things.

The internet is my preferred method of socialization. I’d almost always rather exchange emails or posts with people than talk on the phone or in person.

I’m old enough to remember book shopping before Amazon. It sucked, if you didn’t live somewhere with a large number of good bookstores. Where I lived, the choice was between B Dalton and Waldenbooks. Remember, the people who lived in places with lots of great bookstores were the minority- there were a lot more people who just had B Dalton and Waldenbooks to pick from. It especially sucked if you had non-mainstream interests.

I didn’t always pay my bills online. The non-online method sucked putrid donkey balls. It required me to find a checkbook, envelopes, stamps, a mailbox, and a pen that writes. You had to lick envelopes and (sometimes) stamps, too, and that was yucky. Online bill pay requires none of those things. I just have to find the bills that have to be paid (and not always even that, since some of them auto-pay online or offer online bills), my online banking password, and a few minutes to sit down at the computer to do the actual paying.

I don’t really do online gaming, but even single-player gaming has changed with the internet. You can find hints and maps online for a lot of games now. You used to have to pay for that stuff, either in the form of a magazine like Nintendo Power or in the form of strategy guides. And, of course, those things were not available on demand at any time the way that a site like gamefaqs is, nor were they necessarily available for less popular games.

Getting music was harder and more expensive. If you wanted one song, you often had to buy a whole album. Tape or record singles generally cost more than single tracks do on iTunes, even without accounting for inflation. If you liked obscure or older music, it was not guaranteed that you could get it from your local record store. They had a lot less selection than iTunes or Amazon. And it was a lot harder to listen to one song from album A and then one from album B, even after you owned copies of both A and B. You either had to switch records/tapes/CDs, or you had to make a mix tape. Both were a lot harder than using an iPod.

I’m not organized, and have a lot of trouble with losing important papers. That’s much less of a problem with the internet than it would be without it. I email the really important information to myself, because there I know it won’t get lost. Searching gmail for stuff is a lot easier than searching through all the papers on my desk for stuff. If you don’t share a gmail account with somebody else, nobody throws things out or moves your stuff without telling you.

I haven’t watched TV news since 9/11/01. I’ve since lost my patience for all the filler, fear-mongering, and commercials in it. Though I suppose I could go back to newspapers for that.

I don’t think Tivo would work without the internet. I would sure hate to go back to watching TV the old way. I don’t watch commercials now, unless they look interesting when I am fast-forwarding through them on the Tivo. I’m planning to use Tivo to minimize Lil’ Neville’s exposure to TV commercials (I don’t think this will be too hard, as Mr. Neville and I almost never watch live TV, and I figure our kid will probably imitate our behavior). Programming a VCR was a lot harder and more of a pain than programming my Tivo, it didn’t give you nearly as much storage space (one videotape was only a few hours long), and it was a lot harder to access individual shows on videotape than on Tivo. You had to pay for a guide telling you what was on which channel when, too (either as part of a newspaper, or as a separate TV Guide magazine), or else watch commercials to get that information.

Computers wouldn’t be as widely useful without the internet, so there would be a lot less demand for my job skills as a system administrator with no internet. Computers would still have some uses, and there would still be system administrators, but a lot fewer of them would be needed than are now. That would mean system administrator jobs would pay less (supply would outstrip demand) and be harder to find.

46

Entertainment I could live without. But I work in Silicon Valley, and the whole place would shut down. At work I publish the output of some of my tools on an internal web site, and we interact with colleagues all over the world on the net. I’m involved with a conference where the entire paper submission, review, and publication process is web-based. Ditto for journals.

However, as emcee2k said, the entire economy would crash and burn. Going into a branch because the ATM doesn’t work won’t do it, since the branch is connected to their central computers.

It would be like a zombie invasion, but not so civilized.

47

I’d miss the web, but at least it would give the opportunity to put a dent in the books taunting me on my bookshelf.

48

Of course, things would be worse now in terms of getting books and music than they were back in the day, since so many book and music stores have closed due to online competition. But even if the internet crashing for several months weren’t like the zombie apocalypse only less civilized (which I think it would be), it would still suck.

Researching stuff sucked. To paraphrase Sammy Hagar, what used to take all day now takes two hours. Or it might have taken longer than one day and take less than two hours now. Researching stuff before you purchased it, and comparison shopping for stuff, was a lot harder. On average, you probably paid more for worse stuff as a result. See this thread for other mundane examples of how things were harder before Google and the internet.

I like taking time away from the internet when I go on vacation, too. This fits with my general vacation philosophy of not doing things on vacation that I could do just as well from home. Although email is a much better way than the phone to tell people you’ve arrived safely, or to communicate with people back home about other things, since you don’t have to do it at a reasonable time for both time zones and it generally costs less. It’s also more efficient, since you can send one email to lots of people instead of making several phone calls.

Print newspapers have one big disadvantage over online newspapers- when you get a printed newspaper, it is in your house, and you eventually have to get rid of it. I remember letting them pile up for a long time and eventually taking a whole bunch of them out to the trash or recycling. That never happens with online news sites. I just hit the X at the top right of the browser (or on the tab), and it’s gone, no more cleanup necessary, nothing to throw away or recycle. Online news sites also mean nobody ever steals your newspaper before you bring it in in the morning, and online news sites don’t get ruined by sprinklers or thrown into the bushes where you can’t find them.

49

But you can’t line your bird cage with your iPad.
Much as you’d want to.
Anyhow, I’ve done the Times crossword in pencil for a long time. On-line is not the same.

50

You would find me whimpering to myself, curled up in the fetal position.

51

I don’t have birds (the Neville kitties would probably like it if we did, but I think they’d prefer them uncaged). I don’t do crossword puzzles.

It is kind of a pain on the few occasions per year when I want to have newspaper to put under something, though. But then I run to the drugstore across the street and get a print newspaper.

52

What’s sad is that my honest first thought when reading this was: “Oh My God, my non professional life would be so much more productive!”

53

Mildly inconvenienced…but I’d be back in the arms of my first mistress, the public library, within 24 hours.

54

It wouldn’t necessarily eliminate my job, but I’d be restricted in what I could do and our company creates technology that’s heavily dependent on the existence of the Internet. Personally, I’d be a bit irritated the first 200 times I reached for my iPhone to look up some factoid or felt like dashing off an email, but it wouldn’t be catastrophic. I might actually return to the books I’ve been criminally neglecting.

More grievously, I think it would do immeasurable damage to our national and world economy, so I find the question a bit odd— a bit like asking how sad I’d be on a scale of 1-10 if the sun exploded.

55

It’s funny how many people concentrate on whether they personally would miss the 'Net, what with all the others who point out that the whole world would suffer for it, especially since even those who avoid the Internet whenever they can (except for the Dope, of course) probably interact with important entities who absolutely need it.

But I guess that’s the nature of the slight vagueness of the original question. Sure better than asking whether the CNN article quoted in the OP is mindless sensationalism (the answer being probably “yes”).

56

Well, if automatic on-line bill-paying went away, I’d have to order more checks and go back to the old way - that would be a major annoyance. I’d miss the Dope, email, instant access to information, and I’d have to go back to the phone company for my land line.

I’d adjust after initial withdrawal.

57

Mildly inconvenienced, in that I do a lot of shopping via the internet as I live in an area that’s not known for it’s shopping malls.

I’d go back to snail mail writing letters to friends (most of whom I’ve lost contact with aside from friending them on facebook since the advent of email and other forms of internet based communication)

Not sure what I’m going to do for LOLcats though…

58

I would get used to not having the internet, but there would be a definite withdrawal period!

59

I’d be gutted. My job involves no internet usage at all (apart from a teeny tiny bit which barely rates a mention) but I’d rather give up chocolate than the 'net.

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the www. An email address? Why on earth would I want one of those? (Me, circa 1996) The internet? What the hell is it, anyway? (Same year). I started a course in 1997 which required me to have an email addy and to use the web and I’ve been addicted ever since.