SoylentNews

• Re:It depends.(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Saturday May 04 2024, @11:30AM

  by Unixnut (5779) on Saturday May 04 2024, @11:30AM (#1355869)

  I was going to come here and say something similar.

  I myself can go for a long time without internet access as everything I need for day to day activity is stored locally on my server and I don't use social media or "cloud" anything. Once the internet went down for a few hours and I did not even notice. I was only alerted after the issue was resolved when I got an e-mail from my ISP apologising for the days outage.

  If however I need to function/interact with society, that is a different situation. Almost everything is done online now, from banking to dealing with the local authorities. Likewise my work does require internet access if I want to earn money to live.

  I myself could cope without the internet just fine (but of course I prefer having it). Worst case scenario would be a return to the sneakernet days [wikipedia.org], just with much larger storage media.

  However the modern world is built on the assumption of internet access. So losing internet access long term would bleed into the real-world and cause me problems (e.g. unable to earn money, pay bills/rent or deal with government).

  I would say it would take about a month before problems occurred, basically until next rent/bills are due.

  For other people (like some members of my family), their entire life is "in the cloud". They interact through social media, listen to music and watch stuff off youtube, all their pictures, documents are on Google, etc... Their devices are basically a thin client to the cloud where their life is.

  If they lose internet they notice instantly, and if it doesn't come back within 15 mins or so they get visibly anxious, frustrated and irritable. I think most people are like that now.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Interesting=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3