I spent just over a week at my Dad’s in Spain and I barely used the Internet at all. Previously my Dad’s internet connection hasn’t been that great (he lives out in the sticks) but it is better now and he’s even got Wi-Fi! I could’ve connected to the Wi-Fi on my phone but decided not to for a number of reasons.

First of all my work emails come to my phone. When I’ve had just one day off work I’ve seen all the emails come through and it can be up to around 100 emails. I didn’t want to be constantly thinking about work when I’m supposed to be on holiday. My colleagues had my mobile number so if there was any major problems they could’ve get hold of me. I have to say getting back to the UK and suddenly receiving emails on my phone, it was quite a surprise and sort of daunting to see I have 314 unread emails from work.

I needed a break from life. The couple of blog posts that went up this week were scheduled (hence delayed replies to comments) and I did go on Twitter and Facebook now and then but only for minutes and not every day. Really, I just wanted to switch off from “real life”. The past month or so has been crazy busy at work and kinda stressful and then there was the sudden death of a friend and all those emotions kept coming together and I just needed to step back from it all and not have to really think for a while.

It’s nice to switch off from technology. To not have people’s constant thoughts and opinions being thrown at you – both positive and negative – is a nice reprieve. I do love social media, I love how you can make friends with people you’ve never met just because you have similar interests and you can learn about the world in a different way to conventional media and news outlets. But it is nice to take a break from it all. All I’ve done this past week really is read, in just over a week I read seven books. I haven’t read that much in such a short space of time for ages – probably not since I was at my Dad’s last year.

It is nice to have a break from the internet. I’m sure in the next few days I’ll be back addicted to Twitter and constantly using my phone to google something (that was another thing that was different, I couldn’t just look something up when I thought of it and by the time I’d use the computer I’d have forgotten most of the stuff I wanted to look into) and that’s OK. It’s nice to have a break but I know and accept that nowadays we almost need to be constantly online – especially when it comes to things like work.

Have you ever had a break from the internet? Either by accident or self-enforced?