It’s funny how often people are appalled that E and I live without internet at home. I don’t think it was an intentional choice we ever made – it all started when we were setting up our internet at our old apartment and discovered that we could use Xfinity’s connection from our neighbours. (Xfinity has a weird setup where if you use their routers, they automatically create two wifi access points – one for you, and one for any Xfinity customers to connect to.) We figured why not save on Internet costs every month, so for a while we just used our neighbours’ Xfinity access points. It all worked really well and we were happy campers until somehow all of our Xfinity-using neighbours moved away or canceled their service. And then we were left without internet…

We test drove the situation for a while since our apartment building had a lounge with free internet, and so every time we had dire need for internet (mostly for paying credit card bills, to be honest), we’d just duck out and use internet in the lounge. When we moved in August, we hesitated about whether we wanted to set up internet given we now do not have a lounge/free internet in the building.

To be honest, a smorgasbord of logistics and Internet-related hardware problems in the unit have kept us from setting up internet, and it got me thinking a bit more about what the internet would do for us.

Whenever I tell others that I don’t have internet at home, they ask what I do. To clarify, both E and I have smartphones with very generous data plans, so it’s not that we’re fully disconnected and live in isolation when at home! As needed, E will tether from his phone to do work at home but typically once the work is done, the tethering is shut off. I use a built-in cellular card in my work laptop to do work at home as needed as well. Otherwise, my work laptop usually goes away as well.

In our free time at home, we read, listen to music, talk to each other, cook, have friends over, play board games or just sit and chat with them, and sometimes we scroll our phones. For the most part, I don’t think I’ve consciously noticed anything missing – I do occasionally just want to sit and watch a TV show or movie passively, but I’ve also noticed that since losing internet at home, I’ve really appreciated being in hotels or other people’s places where we can watch TV. But I also notice how quickly the hours pass when we’re just watching TV.

I think for the most part, our setup without internet at home has made us more actively engaged with each other. When our friends come over, they sometimes do sit and scroll their phones, but otherwise, we’re almost always engaging with each other. We don’t have an option of just sitting together and passively consuming content – and for the most part, I think this is super valuable. I will say that there are times when everyone is a bit peopled out and tired and it would be nice to have passive content to absorb together, but at the end of the day, I’m not sure we’d have as many interesting conversations as we do now if we did just have the default option of watching TV.

Would I recommend life without internet at home? I think so. It can definitely be inconvenient at times (and really frustrates our house guests…) but I think it has made me very deliberate about the time I do spend on the internet. I don’t really remember the last time I aimlessly scrolled Buzzfeed or the news or Facebook because they’re not as readily accessible (I also don’t like engaging with this type of content on my phone as much). I think I can recount countless nights where we’ve sat around and drank wine and snacked on cheese and caught up with friends. I think we rarely sit around with a screen in front of each of us doing our own thing – and maybe that’s a mixed bag. But when we do have needs to use our laptops on the internet, we usually make a plan to spend a few hours at a café together and then it’s deliberate time with goals. We’re focused and we don’t dilly dally in the internet maze that I think sucks a lot of time away generally.

All in all, I think not having internet at home has helped us hold onto traditions and habits that many people have lost today – for example, we turn on our lights ourselves rather than asking Google Home or Alexa to do it for us. (But also in all seriousness, we are also better at playing board games and finding other old fashioned ways to enjoy our time – such as by chatting, cooking together, or reading, rather than by watching TV or perusing the internet.) In addition, we’re conscientious about not having phones in the bedroom (we charge them out in the kitchen with extra loud alarms for mornings), not using our phones immediately before bedtime, and avoiding phones at the dinner table (after I’ve taken my customary photo of the meal spread, of course).