Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The internet is like a drug

You keep telling yourself that it isnt. But it is. I realised this today, after two days and 14 hours of no internet, and two days and 14 hours of aimlessly wandering the house (the two are of course not related in any way)

There are three stages of addiction apparently.

Stage 1: Preoccupation/Anticipation:
"Constant cravings for a drug are the very first sign that addiction is taking hold."
We're all in this stage, lets be honest. But when you unplug and re-plug all the telephones in the house and move them around and change the wires and repeat that a couple of times in a pathetic attempt to bring the internet back, that's a pretty clear sign.

Stage 2: Binge/Intoxication:
"As the drug is introduced into the body more frequently, larger amounts are necessary to continue experiencing the same high."
With the intention of engaging the mathematically inclined readers of this blog, I am going to draw a graph, because maths people usually like that (Physics people like graphs too, but they're usually just boring horizontal and diagonal lines. Maths people came up with the Batman equation)


Res ipsa loquitur.

Stage 3: Withdrawal:
"The withdrawal symptoms experienced anytime the drug is not present cause tremendous suffering"
"Tremendous suffering" is putting it mildly. Over the past two and a half days, I have played around fifty games of solitaire and hearts (each), picked up the telephone once every 10 minutes to check if it was working, went to some fancy doctors meeting out of sheer boredom (the use of words less than five syllables long was strictly prohibited), and even contemplated going back to Chengalpet to use the internet there.

So obviously I have a problem. But then so do lots of people. They just dont know it yet. And its a very simple test to know if you're one of them. Throw your modem off the second floor (or just the computer table will usually suffice) and see what happens to you.