Recently though, I stayed in a country hotel in Spain and, although they advertised that wifi was available, it was extremely sporadic. I was with a group of people who were finding difficulty in connecting to the internet and it was surprising how soon we accepted it. There were professionals who used a connection for work, and others who just kept in touch with the world by checking their mobiles; all seemed to accept the situation and even relished the idea of switching off, both physically and mentally.
It made me wonder how much we create our own pressure by searching for information and responding to messages instantly as if the world depended on it. Long gone are the days when a person wrote a letter and waited more than a week for a reply, but we coped well enough then.
Social media may have many benefits, but it can act like a noose around one's neck and not give one the freedom to breathe. Within a couple of days, the people I was with were openly saying how they felt unshackled without a connection. There were some concerns about what their friends and associates would think if they didn't receive a response, but that quickly passed. I imagined that if we were in the hotel long enough, we would be a small community without any outside pressures and would benefit because of it.
It amazes me how open a person can be when writing on social media. Information is given that one would never normally tell a stranger, yet it will appear on sites such as Facebook for all to read. The recent incident of Cambridge Analytica harvesting data from Facebook, which was later used to try and influence opinions, should not surprise anyone. Indeed, the surprise should be that people who willingly give information on their pages are shocked when it’s used by others. It's estimated that the data from 87 million sites was shared improperly by Cambridge Analytica. The many social media websites may appear free, but the aim of the companies is to make money, so they must either use advertising or sell what they have, and what they have is the information they're given by their members.
I also can't understand why so many people bother to follow the inane tweets of those on Twitter. Kate Perry, Justine Bieber and Barack Obama each have more than 100 million followers. Is it that they have something important to say? Do we care, or believe, what is written? It appears that many do; what a trivial society we've become when that is so important to our lives.
The internet is relatively new, but the young have grown up not knowing anything else. Take their mobile away and they are lost. Maybe there'll be a backlash at some stage and people will question the sinister abuse of the internet, for while it can be used in a good way to speedily search for knowledge, it can also be used to manipulate society.
There's no doubt in my mind that once the people in the group left the hotel they connected again as if there hadn't been a break; I know that I did. I don't believe that I missed anything important, but that didn't stop me looking. Perhaps, though, we ought to treat the internet more cautiously and be aware that the information we post online can end up anywhere. We shouldn’t be naïve, the internet is a business and people are out to make money from us, not just provide a service.