I have just blown up the Internet.

CyclingBantam

Ok, that's a lie, but if I did (and I could if I wanted so don't push me) could we all manage our day to day work and lives?

If, starting from when you finish this message, you could not browse the Internet, not use email (either home or work), not tweet or use Facebook, not use any iPhone apps or do anything else online (yes, including porn) for a whole week, could you manage?

Could you continue your social life? Could you do your job?

The Internet has made things so easy but also so easy to avoid. Email at work for example is simply a way of passing the buck.

Thoughts? ( and I do appreciate the irony of the post)

Ben

suzyb

Since my job is web developer the answer would be a resounding no.

EKE_38BPM

Meeting at The Morpeth would have to change from a random friday every few weeks to a more formalised time, every last friday in the month, for example.

Other than that, I'm sure life would go on.

veronese68

Work would be a bit harder. Back to fax and phone only, maybe a telex. More time to do work through, due to less internet distractions. Conversations about who sung whatever would be longer as Google would be off. Social life would revert to meeting in the usual pub, instead of email discussion of where to go for a beer. Then meeting in the normal pub. I wouldn't be writing this.
So more time to work, bed earlier and less in the spank bank.

cyclingpast

Reminds me of this:

pst88

Most of my work is copy and pasted off the internet so I'd be pretty shafted!

flicksta

Most people could manage, why not?

But what's the point? It's an invention. Could you survive without a telephone or the postal service? Yes, but things would be harder. They are inventions too.

rick_chasey

My job would be impossible without telephones.

No internet would be OK if the rest of the world didn't have it either.

We had no internet as a business for a week and it was pure chaos, with clients complaining that we weren't responding to e-mails, blah blah

Anonymous

If you did blow up the Internets I would be very busy as my job is to fix it.

Kieran_Burns

Did someone type Google into Google search again?


You try to tell people....

jamesco

We're a software company, so no internet means nothing gets done - last time it happened, we grabbed a few bottles of booze and headed to the square for a picnic to wait it out. Now we have a few 3g mifi units for emergencies to at least keep email ticking over.

woodford2barbican

If internet did not exist my business would not. So no job. More cycling.

CyclingBantam

flicksta wrote:

Most people could manage, why not?

But what's the point? It's an invention. Could you survive without a telephone or the postal service? Yes, but things would be harder. They are inventions too.

I absolutely appreciate it is a great invention and helps us enormously however, I am sure it (email in particular) actually slows down things significantly. How often are you told at work that so and so has "sent an email" and will get back to you. If they had phoned up, they could have got an instant answer.

Only thinking, not actually suggesting we should blow it up (just to be clear to any watching policemen)

Confusedboy

When I first started working for the Post Office in 1987, just at the time that email had infliltrated the world of business, the Post Office had completed a survey of message transmission times; i.e. the time it took the intended recipient to actually recieve imformation via snailmail, telephone, fax, and email. Interestingly, email and fax were the slowest, email taking 4 and a half working days on average.

The reason is that, while emails are sent instantaneously, the sender has no control over when they are actually read-the completion of transmission of the message. Phone calls, so long as the recipient replied, were fastest of course, but there was found to be a psychological demand for faxes and snailmail letters to be looked at-in tray guilt- whereas even when email was shiny and new, it could easily be ignored and hidden from your boss.

I suspect that, in more recent times, the use of multi-option answering services has knocked telephones off thier perch in this respect.

If you blewed up the internets, some of you would get some work done instead of b*ggering about on forums.

CyclingBantam

Confusedboy wrote:

If you blewed up the internets, some of you would get some work done instead of b*ggering about on forums.

No we wouldn't.

I am curently setting up Bikeradar via post up now as a contingency. Threads mighe take a while admittedly but you can never be too careful.

Paul E

Did you just put google into google?

Jay dubbleU

Since most of my mapping tools are web based the probably not

drays

Confusedboy wrote:

If you blewed up the internets, some of you would get some work done instead of b*ggering about on forums.

Don't know what you're talking about...

8)

Monkeypump

Does nobody here work in a global organisation?

Email is often the only way to communicate across regions, short of waking people up with a phone call in the middle of the night.

And the internet allows multitasking - i.e. I can work on a train or in an airport.

I'm sure we'd survive, but it would certainly be more difficult.

navt

What's a job?

flicksta

CyclingBantam wrote:

flicksta wrote:

Most people could manage, why not?

But what's the point? It's an invention. Could you survive without a telephone or the postal service? Yes, but things would be harder. They are inventions too.

I absolutely appreciate it is a great invention and helps us enormously however, I am sure it (email in particular) actually slows down things significantly. How often are you told at work that so and so has "sent an email" and will get back to you. If they had phoned up, they could have got an instant answer.

Only thinking, not actually suggesting we should blow it up (just to be clear to any watching policemen)

If you manage and use email efficiently it's great. I far prefer it to the phone, as it allows me to prioritise. There is nothing more inefficient than getting phone message that says 'can you call me back', but doesn't say about what. Those just don't get returned by me, I don't have time.

CdrJake

Maybe if someone did blow up the internet it might mean my logistics staff would actually do some work rather than wasting the tax payers time on Facebook!

I can personally cope without the internet, but half my crew wouldn't as they require it for their day to day work.

itboffin

Never fear peeps I have a backup of the Internet on my laptop just in case

paulintheforest

My home broadband was down for a week between Christmas and New Year while I was at home for all but one of the days. It was amazing how much stuff I actually got done during that week with no internet to distract me.

Tonight I might have gone to bed about 11 rather than sitting here at almost 1 a.m. No internet at home would make me more efficient. I even considered cancelling when it came back on, but quickly kicked that idea into touch.

At work with no Internet I would be sitting in an office in the middle of nowhere completely disconnected from the rest of the company and the tools we need to do our jobs.

roger_merriman

When i do sleep in I have limited internet in that O2's reception is shocking there so browsing etc takes a while,

plus while In theory I'm only paid until bla time as your in some ones home doesn't work like that.