What is the longest amount of time you have gone without using the internet?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is the longest amount of time you have gone without using the internet?

Heuristic answers:

• during class (sometimes 😉)
• a little while
• not long

Time to first computer usage from birth:

• ~4 years before first using a computer
• probably the first 6-7 years of my life
• 9 years (the first 9 years of my life)
• 14 years before I got my first phone
• 30 years (<-- 30="" a="" aged="" could="" editor="" have="" how="" i="" idea="" li="" no="" note:="" person="" reply="" s="" this="">

Time of longest non-internet "break" since first computer usage:

• one hour
• a day
• 21 hours, cross-continent flight
• 2 days
• maybe like 48 hours?
• 4 days
• a week
• two weeks
• 2 weeks (summer camp in a mountain)
• A couple weeks? But I'd love to try going w/o it for a longer time.
• 3 months

One student wrote "∞". I have corresponded with this student by email; I wonder if, on their end, they had the messages transcribed and then read aloud to them by a personal, permanent "internet secretary"? Actually, I'm pretty sure I have watched this student load a webpage during class in a computer lab, so maybe this is just reporting error...

Winning comedic/situationally-funny response: "The times that eduroam is out..."

I previously asked this question in 2017.


This post's theme word is floccipend (v tr), "to regard as worthless." They floccipend internet downtimes.

Peter and the Wolf

Swarthmore College Lab Orchestra's presentation of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf was delightful --- playful, cute, fun, and with an auditorium full of children who shrieked at the scary parts. Like many others in the audience, I brought my parents, and we all had an enriching time. I particularly appreciated that we were invited onstage after the performance to chat with the musicians and look at their instruments up-close.

We later in the afternoon remembered that the iconic wolf music was the "bully" theme music from A Christmas Story.


This post's theme word is exclosure (n), "a fenced area, especially in a wide open area, to keep unwanted animals out." The wolf was captured outside the exclosure!