CBS Marketwatch briefly reports on the difficulties of researching the effects of being disconnected--for two weeks--from the Internet:
I assume they're talking about people who normally use the Internet heavily. When I was offline last summer, I did find it was difficult to go about my daily life, even for relatively mundane things like quickly getting a weather forecast. And I certainly don't think I could have responsibly gone offline during the school year, given how net-connected most of my teaching and research are. But I did discover that giving up the Internet was a little like giving up TV: It's disconcerting at first, and leaves a huge, empty gap in your daily routine. But then other things start to tumble into that gap, filling it. The experience made me think a lot about the work that I do online, both the sheer amount (currently 6 to 8 or more hours a day) and the sorts of work I use the Internet for. And eventually you get used to being offline, and to some extent I have to say I was happier, overall, offline. (Leading me to also question the status of the Internet as an addiction. Why am I back? Who knows.) [via MacMinute]