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When we had that power outage in Spain, for a brief period we had a taster of what the world used to be: we had electricity/TV/radio but no Internet access. I m

When we had that power outage in Spain, for a brief period we had a taster of what the world used to be: we had electricity/TV/radio but no Internet access. I must say it was delightful but I'm not sure how it would be long-term. My world-view certainly opened up with Internet access. ps. I considered using em dash in this paragraph but decided against it due to LLM's using it. Made me a little bit self-conscious for a second. I am self-editing myself not to be mistaken with an AI.

harvey9 1y ago
You had electricity in the power outage? I guess you mean battery powered radio and that the radio transmitter had the same, while telecoms base stations did not.
- haiku2077 1y ago
  I think they meant there was a window where the residential power came back on but the internet was still out.
joshstrange 1y ago
As a counter point, a couple years ago wind storms knocked out power for close to a week where I live (KY, USA). I’ve had power outages before but this time, maybe because of how widespread it was, it made cellular service unusable. I could drive a block away and get a tiny bit of signal but nothing else would come through. No internet, no texts, no iMessage, no Discord. Not only was it incredibly isolating but I never fully internalized how much I rely on the internet. Thinking back it had been well over a decade since I had been that disconnected. I’d been without power for 1-2 days but only truly without internet for a few hours total (often with a way to get online if I really wanted/needed to, like while flying). I had plenty of entertainment (books and podcasts) on my phone but I kept trying to look up info on the web. I’d hear or read something, want to follow up on it, type in a google search then be brought crashing back down to the reality of no internet. “Phantom Internet Syndrome”? It really surprised me how much “background” Internet searching/etc I do which I don’t even think about. I lasted less than 6 waking hours (went out in the evening, in the morning I called it quits) before giving up and driving to my parent’s house (which I was already planning on doing later that week. I have a full office setup there as well). That experience was eye-opening to me. If someone asked me how often I use the Internet and/or how I’d fare without it, I probably would’ve guessed very wrong.

harvey9 1y ago

You had electricity in the power outage? I guess you mean battery powered radio and that the radio transmitter had the same, while telecoms base stations did not.

haiku2077 1y ago
I think they meant there was a window where the residential power came back on but the internet was still out.

joshstrange 1y ago

As a counter point, a couple years ago wind storms knocked out power for close to a week where I live (KY, USA). I’ve had power outages before but this time, maybe because of how widespread it was, it made cellular service unusable. I could drive a block away and get a tiny bit of signal but nothing else would come through. No internet, no texts, no iMessage, no Discord. Not only was it incredibly isolating but I never fully internalized how much I rely on the internet. Thinking back it had been well over a decade since I had been that disconnected. I’d been without power for 1-2 days but only truly without internet for a few hours total (often with a way to get online if I really wanted/needed to, like while flying). I had plenty of entertainment (books and podcasts) on my phone but I kept trying to look up info on the web. I’d hear or read something, want to follow up on it, type in a google search then be brought crashing back down to the reality of no internet. “Phantom Internet Syndrome”? It really surprised me how much “background” Internet searching/etc I do which I don’t even think about. I lasted less than 6 waking hours (went out in the evening, in the morning I called it quits) before giving up and driving to my parent’s house (which I was already planning on doing later that week. I have a full office setup there as well). That experience was eye-opening to me. If someone asked me how often I use the Internet and/or how I’d fare without it, I probably would’ve guessed very wrong.