Offline Odyssey

Hot on the heels of cartoonist James Sturm's offline experiment, photographer/teacher friend Nicholas Gaffney has made the bold declaration (via Facebook):

I'll be offline til late-August. See you then. (I'll still be checking e-mail occasionally)

The next day, I received an email from Nicholas:

So, Emma's Aunt and Uncle just bought me an iPad...
-n

Would using an iPad all summer long... qualify as being truly "offline"?

I suspect NOT. But if he's genuinely offline, he won't be reading this blog and I can feel free to cast as many judgments and aspersions as I wish without concern about rebuttals.

Let me tell you a little story about Nick friggin Gaffney. I lived with him for two semesters in college and—

[DELETED]

(Okay... I just wrote a really long entry about Nick Gaffney... had a drink, read it over and decided it was perhaps too incriminating. For the sake of Nick and his family, I decided to delete it.)

If you haven't been reading it (and I know you haven't even though I pointed it out to you!!!), James Sturm's chronicle of his effort to give up the internet for several months is a fascinating read.

EXCERPT:

In the first week after my first column ran, I received more than 50 letters from readers describing their own struggles with the Internet. More than three-quarters of them were handwritten. One of the things I love about comics is that, unlike a book set in type, the reader experiences the artist's actual hand. It feels very personal. Many readers expressed what a revelation it was just sitting down and writing a real letter. If I had read these same letters online, they wouldn't have been as moving.

Every single letter was supportive. I've been told that this isn't the case in the column's online comments section. Are sympathetic people more motivated to write? Or is it just that if someone doesn't care for the column, why should he waste more time writing to me about it? Either way, my exposure to negativity, both in terms of feedback on Market Day and this column, is greatly reduced by being offline. If and when I eventually go back to read all the responses to both, I think enough time will have passed and I'll have a healthier distance from my work—it will be easier to either shrug it off or take the criticism constructively. There is a lot to be said for a slower feedback loop.

The latest entry incorporates comics drawn by students from his Cartoon Studies class.

For me, the internet represents both an incredible resource and an exceptional tool of procrastination. This blog serves as remarkably damning evidence of how much time I can waste and it is, quite simply, unconscionable.

DISCIPLINE is the mantra. I won't be going offline anytime soon. This blog and the internet are what keep me tethered to the world. But procrastination is a deadly sin that must be fought every day.