Getting the net

In the last few days I've moved house, and haven't had access to the net.

Which brings me to consider the previously inconsiderable question: Is the internet a luxury?

Furthermore, is the net really such a great way to communicate? So many of us (myself included!) use the net to the exclusion of just about every other form of communication. Yet we never really stopped to consider if the net really is that much better than other means of communication. It was just here.

And we pay for it, and the bills are here (THUNK!), and we assume it is a necessity we can't live without. Like TV. And Cable TV. And Microwave Ovens. And two cars. And mobile phones. And meat at every meal. And dishwashers. And DVDs. And Ipods. The list goes on. No wonder we're drowning in debt, with so many "necessities".

The first day or two without it, I really missed the net. I missed my blogging, I missed my friends, I missed the daily contact that comes with internet easiness of instant, round-the-world messaging.

Then, for the next few days, I was simply too busy to blog anyway. Sixty boxes of our...ummm...decluttered lifestyle and possessions had arrived from Australia, and there were metres of bubblewrap to be dewrapped, boxes to be collapsed, damaged to be determined, places to be found for everything, stuff to be moaned over ("What on EARTH did I pack THAT for?") and so on.

And a funny thing began to happen. With the disappearance of the net from my life (Telecom were simply absolutely unable to get us broadband in under a week! Yay for efficiency - NOT), I began to revert to old and alternative ways of catching up.

Phone calls began to re-assert themselves. I realised that texting friends back in Australia really does just cost a few cents. I caught up on letters, and even managed a postcard to a dear sister, whose birthday I'd slipped in the upheaval.

Upon meditation, I started to realise that the net makes communication easier, but somehow, something of the preciousness of our relationships is lost in that ease.

I love the net, because I can keep up with the trivia "back home" that makes up the lives of people I love so much, but emails and Facebook updates do NOT take the place of letters, and postcards, and phone calls when we hear a real voice on the other end. They never will.

Love letters - or love emails?

And that got me thinking - how many of us have ever received a real love letter? How many of us would even know how to write one? A "love email" just doesn't cut the mustard, somehow, does it?

But a real letter, penned in ink and in a real hand (not typed and corrected in Word, thank you very much!), can mean so much more than a typed message ever can. Or a Skype chat. Or a Facebook "gift". Or any of the above, and similar. Electronic appeals to our emotions seem cheap and tasteless by comparison. And so they are.

In so many ways, the net has brought us closer together - we can form communities with people we never would have otherwise met, and make friendships that have real meaning.

But in many ways, that ease has also made us lazy. We've forgotten the joy that a simple letter can bring. We forget how we smile when a postcard arrives, and yet when one comes for us it really does make us happy to know someone cares and is thinking of us.

Getting the net back has been a good thing, I think. I'm glad to be back online. But my few days without the net has also been a blessing, because it has reminded me that while the net is one way to communicate, it is not necessarily the best way. Letters dwarf the net in beauty and simplicity and love. And stronger and more personal still is the power of the human voice - and the joy that comes from being face to face and of touching and holding and being with those we love.

For these joys, the net will always be a poor substitute. But the irony of me blogging about all this - the superiority of the tangible over the electronic - is not lost on me. But I'll share the joke with my friends at the pub tonight - face to face, not on Facebook. Real life, not Second Life. With a half pint that can never be recreated on-screen :-)

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