| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| How did leaving the internet affect your faith? | Helped and hurt it. I disconnected from people in some ways, which made it difficult to be close to some church friends. But I also learned a lot about myself, and how God is pleased with me and I can be pleasing to Him without being perfect. |
| I kind of "gave up" near the start of the year, and have been building off of that zero point ever since... hopefully in the right direction, toward a closer relationship with God. | |
| , I found this to be very interesting. Thank you for doing this and sharing it with the world. | VERY DIFFICULT. It's stressing me out. There is way too much of it, and is it just me or is it all moving faster now. We're all so good at the internet now, we're like one of those people really good at squeezing all the toothpaste out of a tube. It's cool, but at the end you don't have any toothpaste left! |
| Have you found it difficult to pick up the internet where you left off? | Not sure where I was going with that... |
| Are you still feeling guilty for using the internet again? | Yeah, I feel guilty. It's irrational, but I think I should take it slow for the next few days, once this initial buzzwave dies down. |
| Also, when I see people's screens, or they try to show me something, I still look away on reflex. Took a while to train myself on that, might take a while to untrain. | |
| I'm having the opposite problem. | Remember the Yahoo! directory where you could find a relevant website by category? |
| I feel like there used to be more internet, and now I just use meme image feeds and reddit. | I think oldnet's Reddit equivalent, in a way, was Geocities. Personal sharings, and GIFs. |
| Do you have any regrets from this one year? | Totally. I wish I'd got off my ass more often and done stuff. I had all the time and clarity of thinking, none of the gumption. |
| Your article really touched me when I read it yesterday because you were so honest with your failures and disappointments. I get the feeling that if I did the same experiment I would end up doing almost exactly the same thing. | Maybe you could build a little pile of rocks on my rubble of failure! |
| You said, "My sister, who has dealt with the frustration of trying to talk to me while I'm half listening, half computing for her entire life, loves the way I talk to her now. She says I'm less detached emotionally, more concerned with her well-being — less of a jerk, basically." | Yeah, in fact I had her over the night before I turned in what became the final draft of the article. She talked me through an outline (I'd helped her with her essays through college, so she owed me one), and pointed out a lot of positive things about me this year I'd missed. Also, I'm SO proud of her. She graduated from college this year, and is starting out in a profession that's highly competitive and kind of scary to leap into, and she's totally rocking it. |
| Would you do it again? Why? | No. For one, it was a bit of a stunt, and that could get old. |
| Secondly, it really separated me from people. I liked the calmness and lack of distraction, but I don't want to trade people for that luxury. | |
| How hard was it to actually stay offline? I don't mean about the willpower but that so many things are online it's almost unavoidable. Ever get tricked into it? | I got tricked once at the library. The NYPL catalog is just a website. |
| Other then that it was just a lot of people flashing Instagram in my face. | |
| Why is Josh such a jerk? | Josh and I tell each other what we think. I love having Josh as a boss, because he thinks 100% differently than me in almost every department (except for a few tech preferences, but only a few). It would be so boring to work for someone who agreed with me. |
| When was the closest you got to saying "Fuck it, I'm going online!" and why? | Like, two days before May 1st. I thought it would be funny to ruin everything right then. One cosmic yearlong troll. |
| What web site(s) did you miss the most? | Link to didntmeantopost.tumblr.co Link to www.theverge.com |
| What was your favorite letter from the last year? | Someone trolled me really hard by sending a letter using an online service as a sort of internet-usage entrapment. Also, he told me he wouldn't congratulate me on my weight loss because it would be like "congratulating a thief for not stealing." |
| Oh snap. | OH MAN THAT WAS SO GREAT. Thank you! |
| Can I ask what you thought of the flip-book animated gif of you using a flipbook animated gif I sent you? | Sorry I never wrote back :( |
| While you were offline I hoped that you would have done a "What's in your bag, Paul Miller?" post for the site. Im curious to know what items were most valuable to you in your time offline? Was it just all newspapers and paper maps? | What's funny is I did like two "What's in your bag" photoshoots, and neither ended up on the site for whatever reason. |
| *Moleskine was probably number 1. | |
| *Actually, maybe my laptop. I thought I'd be more iPad, but I really just did my MacBook Pro because it was such a pain to sync with my iPad and I wanted to make sure I had backups. I wrote a ton a ton a ton of text on my MacBook Pro this year. | |
| *Moleskine is number 2. | |
| *Then it's whatever book I'm trying to read at the time. Typically I carry something lighter and easier (like short stories or sci-fi) and something denser (like Aristotle) and read what fits my mood. | |
| *Newspapers were key, but I usually read them before I left my coffeeshop, so they didn't end up in my bag too much. | |
| *Tons of thumb drives to swap edits with my co-workers. | |
| *I also really really value my bike and my skateboard, and sadly my bike died this year and I'm still sad about that. | |
| (sry I forgot how to do formatting on reddit and I don't want to google it because I don't want any more tabs open because tabs stress me out) | |
| You've been back for a day. What has changed on the internet in a year? | Vine is new and SnapChat is cool now. That's about it. |
| What about how popular reddit has gotten? Or other sites you frequent? | Reddit already felt pretty big to me before I left. TBH, I guess I just don't pay too much attention. I've kind of noticed a few redesigns, but nothing's really stuck out as a real shift. |
| Any suggestions? I'd love to see something fresh! | |
| How was it working with the verge offline? | A lot harder on my co-workers than me. After I turned in a text file they had to take it all the way through editing, layout, publishing, comment moderation, etc. I got to just walk away and think about the next piece. |
| Also, I was hard to get ahold of, so that sucked. | |
| Thanks for doing this Paul. You talked about your sister's observation that you had become a better listener and seemed to be more empathetic. I understand that you also said that it doesn't take quitting the internet to understand that people have feelings. However, I was wondering if you think the internet breeds apathy and if minimizing your use increases the quality of interactions? Thanks! | I think it's just about using it at the right time, and not being half in it and half out. To be honest, I find it more annoying when someone pretends like they're in a conversation or watching a movie with me than when they make it clear they need to attend to a text message or a phone call or an email. Or even if they just want to cruise through instagram that's cool with me, just don't pretend like you're also in the moment with me. |
| I know that sounds rly harsh, and I don't want to judge people. That's just the feeling I get, and the action I'm attempting to avoid now that I'm back. | |
| I already totally screwed up last night, got way into my iPad and ignored my roomie and sister for minutes at a time... while we sat on the same couch. | |
| I keep reading how overwhelmed the internet has been making you. Since reddit involves a lot of people (clearly), how difficult is it for you to do this AMA? | I put it fullscreen on a second desktop. I keep getting pulled away from emails because (humblebrag) I'm getting media requests. And I need to write a blurb for my offline column on The Verge and my editor just told me the blurb I tried to write between AMA answers was crap. Also I just upgraded to Mountain Lion and I'm getting all these notifications and they're just bugging me, I don't even know how to look at them yet. I'm currently hiding in one of our phone booths at the office so I don't get more distracted. Also, I'm hungry and thirsty but haven't taken my eyes off the computer. Also, I forgot my glasses today so everything hurts to read. |
| But hey, awesome questions, and it's wonderful to hear outside thoughts and opinions after a year siloed away. If only everything could move at like half speed, I might be okay. | |
| Which smart phone are you going to start using? | Maybe an HTC One or an HTC First. I want to get an Android phone as a data only device, and then upgrade my dumbphone for an iPhone 5S whenever that comes out. |
| It sounds like this experiment started off well, but went on perhaps too long. Why did you choose a year, and not a shorter time period? | I dunno, seemed about right to me. Like, a year of college, a year sabbatical, etc. It did start to seem repetitive at points, and then something would shift and the experience would deepen. So I think it was the right amount of time. |
| Will you write this book on your experience? If yes, when do you publish? | Boy I hope I can write it. I've never published anything more than 5k words, so 100k is gonna be a huge stretch for me as a writer. |
| I do think I have some things to say that couldn't be summed up in these small essays, though. Strangely, a lot of contradictory ideas and experiences that I want to put down on paper and then attempt to reconcile. | |
| Did you have any dear friends who deserted you during the experiment? | Yeah, a friend moved to china and never gave me a phone number I could call or an address I could mail. Need to track that jerk down now that I can. |
| Hey, I really loved your article. | I heard about boston while on a roadtrip, and my friends started seeing it be reported on Twitter. I turned on the radio and got fragments of info, then got a better summary that night on CNN in the hotel room. I watched the whole election night on TV. I think I heard about the pope on a TV that's on in my coffee shop. Outside of the BIG moments, most of my little news was fulfilled by the WSJ and the New York Times. I also read about half my New York Mags, a few of my New Yorkers and Wireds, and a Lands End catalog. |
| Is there anything you've seen so far that's made you think "ok, I should go offline again"? | The first hour I was kind of scared. The internet felt big and ferocious and I had to get out of the office and stand outside and smoke a cigarette and hug my co-workers a lot before I calmed down. |
| Are you back on Facebook? How do you feel about it now? | A bit confusing, but I'm determined to learn it. |
| Do you think that the internet is rewiring our brains? | I think, but have no way of knowing for sure, that how we use the internet over time has a potential to rewire our brains — I also believe the brain is plastic enough to shift back. |
| Who on the Verge staff do you think would have the hardest time being off the internet for a year? | Maybe Chris Ziegler (@zpower) |
| It's not just quantity with him, it's quality. He owns the net. | |
| Reading your recap article yesterday, I got the impression that this experiment didn’t really turn out the way you had envisioned it when it comes to trying to be a happier, more productive person and the internet’s role in that. With that in mind, is this something you recommend that other people try for themselves, even for a briefer period of time? Is there something to be gained/learned by going through it? | I think people have things they know they want to do, but then they do things they want to do less for some reason. |
| So my goal is to figure out what I want to do most, and then not let other stuff that presents itself get in my way. | |
| That takes willpower, which I lack, but it also takes good judgement, which I think I'm beginning to form. | |
| Have you already played Heart of the Swarm? | Not yet. TT. |
| As a Gen X'er, I'm flabberghasted that living without internet for a period of time is a big deal to anyone. For Gen Y / Millennials, is lack of internet access truly a big deal? Like going a few days without Facebook is going to kill you? Like opiate withdrawl? | Maybe it might flatter you to know that I kind of wanted to know what it felt like to be a Gen X'er 20 years ago? |
| In the first few months, how did you keep yourself outdoors, completing all those activities, being very productive? How did that change after a while, why couldn't keep go outdoors, force yourself to do things anymore. Are you marginally less distracted without the internet? Thanks. | Out of sync, I just started doing things with people less, and that got me out of the habit of leaving the house. |
| Are we going to hear the music that you are performing in the Finding Paul Miller video? | Maybe someday. It's rough and nothing's recorded. That was our first ever show! |
| Your thoughts on the CES keynote? | I was busy writing in another room while the whole staff was watching the keynote and crying from laughter. So I guess I'm just that good of an employee. |
| Are you going to E3? I tried very hard to catch you last year (I wasn't at The Verge's party), but y'know, you weren't on the internet. When you did your Offline piece with the masthead photo of the Microsoft conference, I could see my colleague about thirty feet behind you and I was so mad, ha! | Yeah, I'm going to E3. I'm probably gonna be kind of stressed out, so much stimulation, so I hope I'm not a jerk if run into you! |
| Did you dream of your Oceana on Vergecraft? I was leading the team building it when you left and it got really hard to keep motivated, but we got a bit further before the server was reset altogether. | And yes, I miss Minecraft. I need things to calm down before I jump in. Want to spend quality time there, not just a hop-in hop-out. |
| So you're back. Now what? | Pray. |
| What was the first thing you did when you got back on the internet? | Tweeted "jk" |
| Did you do a lot of gaming in your year off the internet? How'd you like the Mass Effect trilogy | I gave up a bit into Mass Effect 2. |
| TBH, I just don't like it when a game is so sincere in telling me a story. Let me tell my own story through the actions of my character. "Show don't tell," right? Golden rule of story telling, and all the "story-driven" games seem to miss that point. | |
| I played the Borderlands, Fallout, Burnout Paradise, and Skate 3 the most this year. | |
| Could you hear new music? | Very little. |
| I bought like 6 new cds while I was offline, and half of them sucked. | |
| Link to www.theverge.com | |
| Also, I recommend reading the most Human Human by Brian Christian it's about how computers effect our lives you might like it. | Also I bought breakfast today and it's still sitting uneaten next to my computer. |
| Welcome Paul, I saw the video of your journey and I'm conserned about your mental health, Have you considered seeing a therapist? | Yeah, I'm in therapy / on drugs / still improving. |
| Some of your favorite books from your time away? | Blood Meridian was awesome, kind of a landmark read for me. Helped me understand what fiction can convey. |
| I was anticipating your science fiction novel, any plans for that? | My sci-fi novel is... well, let's just hope that someday it manages to fall out of my computer and onto some published medium. |
| How has your criticism, or taste, changed for the things you consume. Books, journalism, ice cream, alcohol, etc.? | I can read non-fiction now, couldn't do that before. I like opinion more than straightforward fact journalism, because it's easier to receive someone's opinion than suss through a journalistic slant. I'm still into ice cream snickers bars. I actually re-started drinking alcohol in February, after about two years without. I was never an alcoholic, I just wanted to take a break. Glad I came back, though I didn't need the calories. |
| Did you go to school for journalism? What brand of glasses do you wear? They look awesome. Also keep up the good work. | I left my glasses at home today so I can't check the brand :( |
| I didn't go to school for journalism, no. In fact, I didn't go to college at all. In fact, I didn't graduate from high school. | |
| So... stay in school kids! | |
| Actually, a big motivation around this year was my college envy. I'm still considering higher education, I just don't know where it fits in my current career. | |
| Did you ever think about Henry David Thoreau when you were away? I found the experience you related in your piece to be similar, at least superficially. | Yeah, I got halfway through his book. Need to finish it. I see a lot of similarities, the diff is he's a poet and I'm a tech writer, which means he can make more meaning with his words. Also, he was kind of a dork and I'm totally cool. |
| What new piece of technology (that you were previously restricted from) are you really looking forward to using now? | Google Now for sure. I love AI, and this is really becoming the forefront. Hopefully Siri can catch up in its own way. Not too confident though. |
| So when you announced this, I was excited but also disappointing that you would not be writing as much. So I guess my question is, are you taking steps to avoid porn? How successful do you think you will be at avoiding it now that you are back on the internet? | I want to install Covenant Eyes, but ultimately I think the best way to avoid porn is to learn to not like porn — however that can be accomplished. |
| Did you notice your powers of concentration increase? | Yeah. Not exponentially, but enough to give some respect to Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" for exploring the topic. I think we still have a lot to learn about what the internet "does" to our brains, and I'm not a scientist unfortunately. |
| While you realized that life without the internet is a drag, do you think this will ultimately lead to you using the internet less for the shallow stuff (like reddit) and more for networking, work, etc.? | Maybe. I'm actually super stoked on some educational apps I found last night. Flash cards and simple stuff like that, but it's easier than studying Latin in a book. |
| Do you think your year would have gone easier if you had a group of people agreeing to quit the internet, instead of having it be a solitary pursuit? | No, I would've just felt bad for them. |
| Porn, Paul. You can't escape it. How are you going to... help yourself or resist the urges besides setting up that program to send links to your pastor? | \o/ |
| I never took a break from net, but last year I took a 4 month break from Facebook completely and it was fantastic. Since your experiment ended, have you been able to cut back on time wasted on frivilous sites like FB, or do you find that you're spending the same amount of time on them? | I actually think FB is much less frivolous than a lot of other ways I spent / spend my time. |
| I wrote about this some here: Link to www.theverge.com | |
| I want to prioritize family, friends, work, learning with my internet use. So hopefully that informs what's frivolous and not. It's gonna take a lot of practice, though, and I'm still gonna "find" time for a lot of GIFs. | |
| Could you do it again ? | I could but it would be pointless I think. Might be interesting in 5 or 10 years mebbe, but it won't be me I don't think. |
| How long did it take to adapt to new memes? | I dunno, haven't run across too many new ones yet. I will say, some people have tried to verbally explain some memes to me this year and I just did NOT get it. "Had to be there" I guess? We'll see how I take to it. |
| How did you keep yourself motivated to continue the experiment, even though you had your low points throughout the year? I would've caved so easily honestly. | I don't know why it was never a problem. I guess because it was so public of an experiment? |
| Also, I enjoyed the peace of disconnection even if I was squandering the time. | |
| Hey Paul. I've followed your story with interest. It seems to me like you were hit with a bout of depression in the middle of an otherwise good experiment. Your stories of holing up for weeks at a time playing video games and not talking to anyone seem like a very typical depressed person. It just looks to me like you were hit with a bout of regular old depression in the middle of your experience. It's hard to tell how much of that is related to your offline experiment, and how much is good old standard issue depression. Things were going great the first few months and then you slipped from an upbeat, self-actualized phase, into a withdrawn, depressed phase. And it doesn't seem like you've come out of that yet. Do you have a history of depression? Have you considered the idea that your perceived negative ending ("It didn't go great") to your experiment (which started off GREAT) has more to do with you and your own set of mental health issues than it does with your online / offline status? | Yeah, it's hard to tell how that plays in. That's why I don't write like I'm a scientist that figured this stuff out. This is just what happened to me, and if people want to read that then awesome, but if they don't I totally understand — sometimes it's nice to read something a little less subjective. |
| Welcome back! I just read your article and I found it to be really interesting. In the article you wrote a small bit on online loneliness and offline loneliness, could you elaborate a bit more on that? | It's kind of heavy. You feel very distant from people, and like your head is very large and it's swallowing you. And then you play video games to make the feeling go away. But sometimes the video games don't help, and you just sit there and feel. |
| I read the article - not as depressing as you think. I found it fascinating (but not surprising) that your attention span improved. | We probably are. Have you read "The Shallows"? |
| Do you have value on your ability to stay focused enough to read more than 10 pages? If so, What are you going to do keep your attention span in shape? Do you think as a culture we are training ourselves to have short attention spans? | I think my attention span improved... we'll see if that lasts! |
| What internet sensation was the most awesome to you when you got back on the web? | Vacuum cat. |
| Hey Paul, Are you going to our 10 year highschool reunion? | Oh shoot when is that? |
| OK... so... bro... between us and this is sort of serious as it is... odd for me to ask. Where did you get your porn? I haven't bought paper porn or DVDs... ever. This might not of even been a issue for you, but I was curious to see how you managed in that department. | Link to www.theverge.com |
| Are you excited to ditch your huawei and get back to using a smartphone? I remember when the Nexus 4 came out you said when you got back on the internet you were going to buy one of those and use it on T-mobile's $30 a month 100 minute 5GB plan. Are you still planning on doing that? | Yeah, that's the plan. I think. Not sure. I've been a little overwhelmed, so maybe it's good if I keep a dumbphone for now. |
| Would love your opinion: Would a smartphone help me "keep up" or just distract me further? | |
| Does not using the internet make you hipster enough to do well with the ladies? Or will you try online dating now? ;) | I'm not really the online dating type I don't think. And no, apparently I'm never never NEVER hipster enough for the ladies!! |
| Thank you so much for doing this experiment. It was fun to read your articles you wrote while offline, and good to know how important our connection is to people, more important in fact, than what kind of technology or means we use to connect to people. Now that my thanks are out of the way here is my question: Was there anything you were looking forward to coming back to on the internet the most? | Really stoked about Vine, but what I say in the article is the real priority: I want to be with other people. Specifically, I want to be in constant contact with my family and close friends. |
| Will you be playing HOTS, or any new PC ganes now that you're back on the 'net? | Really want to play updated Minecraft, HOTS, and Diablo III. |
| Are you going stream on Twitch again? I forgot your handle there. Also when you were gone, Arma 3 came out and Day Z is almost out for it. | I totally miss Twitch. Just gotta figure out when to carve time for it. And if I should learn to play SC again, or just enjoy watching. |
| How many games of solitaire did you play? | None, but I did play a ton of Ascension (Link to ascensiongame.com and a little bit of cribbage. |
| Did you start watching more TV? | During the Olympics, yes. |
| What's do you usually do during that 1 year? | Work out my bod. |
| You said that the last year has made you realise that the internet was not to blame for all your problems like you thought. What steps are you going to take to change your life now that you know where your problems lie? | Just remind myself of my priorities. Nice thing is now that I've told everybody my priorities, there's more motivation to stick to them. |
| Did you feel like you missed out a little with social networking and (lack of) access to information? | Big time. |
| I wouldn't say wasted, no. It's like any experiment: hypothesis, test the hypothesis, judge the result. My hypothesis was wrong, my experiment was still a success. | Is that how science works btw? |
| You can never be 100% certain about anything, you can just gain evidence that lets you make a Bayesian update about your confidence in the hypothesis. | Ugh science is so hard, friggin Bayesian updates. |
| One of the Verge staff posted on twitter, it was something like 22k. | I can confirm, 22k. |
| Maybe Chris Ziegler (@zpower) It's not just quantity with him, it's quality. He owns the net. | Also, I have more Twitter followers than him now and won't let him forget it. |
| I'd love a short list of great books you read while offline and recommend. I'm really keen on reading a Paul Miller book btw, | This was my (pre-downloaded) audiobook collection this year: Link to i.imgur.com |
| Thanks Paul, you're my inspiration for studying to become a tech writer. | Especially loved Blood Meridian, Valis, and Solaris. |
| 100 dB and now it was at 0 dB | I feel that. |
| And yeah, cable TV is scaaary. I just signed up for internet and phone service, but I'm not getting cable nooo way. | |
| Do you find yourself going back to bad habits that take you out of the moment. Checking twitter when your out with friends for instance. | I don't have a smartphone, so at least not while I'm out... but yes, totally. I suck already. |
| Just wanted to say that the article was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing it. :D. | I hope my answers here don't contradict or confuse what I said in that article, but I should note that I'm still trying to understand things. I don't have it all figured out, even my own experiences. |
| This is like saying "I'm going to stop reading!" in the 18th century. | Oh man, I bet that guy was such a badass. |
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