Enjoying the disconnection
In the era of the Internet of Things we are the first Thing that is always connected. Luckily for me I spent the past week enjoying my holidays with my girlfriend. We went to Switzerland and we didn’t have cellular connection on our devices. That has turn out to be a great thing.
Saying that we spent a week completely disconnected will be a lie, although I would love to try it someday. But it’s fair to say that we have been disconnected for the most part of our holidays.
We mainly use our devices to take photos of the trip. In the morning, before leaving the hotel, we use the hotel wifi, obviously only available in the reception because we are still in 2015, to keep our family informed. You don’t want to scare your mother without saying anything for two days. Believe me.
After leaving the hotel we didn’t use any Wifi, mainly because some smart people decided that to connect to any free wifi you have to receive a code via SMS. Obviously this is super useful when the main reason to use Wifi is because you don’t have mobile connection. But again, we are still in 2015.
Just before going back to our room we use the Wifi to read the answers from our mothers. It’s curious to me how everyone asks for pictures when you go to somewhere. Years ago people just asked if the place was beautiful or something similar, but nowadays people wants pictures of everything. Like if people wouldn’t have enough with their lives. Anyway, that was the moment when we share some pictures of our day to the social networks.
Apart from being disconnected, it has been nice to disconnect a little from technology and developing. Here, I have to admit that I had my iPad with me so I read some articles while traveling in the train or in the plain. In fact, I’m writing this on the iPad while flying back to London, so I cannot say that I’ve been completely away from technology.
The good part is that I’ve read/mark as read all the old articles that I had on Pocket and in the RSS reader. I also removed a lot of rss feeds, mainly all the ones that cut the post on the rss and force you to go to the website. If you don’t allow me to read your site while being offline you just don’t deserve my time. Pretty simple. So bye bye to a lot of news sites and tutorial sites, even the ones that I appreciate. It’s ridiculous that people still uses this tricks just to get more visits. I still have some posts on my safari reading list but those will have to wait until the next holidays :)
I would like also note that I needed to look for a place in a map twice in this travel. I started by using Google Maps and miserably going back to the Apple Maps. Yes, you’ve read well. The route that Google gave me was completely wrong, and make us lose some precious time going to the wrong direction. While Apple Maps just worked. And people still say that google is far better….
The iPad continuous being an amazing device. We watched a couple of films and played Monopoly game in board mode. I’m still amazed how it can have so much battery compared to the rest of devices. I even take some pictures with it, but just while traveling in the train. I have a selfie stick but I’m not yet at the level to use the iPad in the middle of the city to take pictures.
As you can see I’ve not been completely disconnected from Internet or even from technology. But right now, having a week without checking the social networks, coding or even worrying about anything tech related really means being disconnected.