Prologue
“Off the Grid. Go off the grid on October 1!”
The challenge begins at a park in Chicago, as I’m sure all great things do. It’s September 2013, and a bitter cold slaps my face. I’m sitting on a wooden park bench with my cell in hand, hearing my emails with one ear and listening to my friend, Marcus, prattle on about his web development class in college across from me. I can’t help but multitask, however. I bite a chunk out of my burger and navigate my emails with my right thumb.
“It stinks that you didn’t get the internship, Robbie,” he says as he masticates his fries. “I mean an internship with WIRED would be totally sweet! You’d be the only blind guy on staff.”
My phone tells me that a whole host of PR people have sent me about a dozen press releases without asking me if I’d be interested in their car rental services or boots with cameras on them. My phone tells me, via my earpiece, that I have even more emails flooding into my inbox as I devour my burger.
For the past week, I’ve been sending in application after application. Sure, I’ve had several offers from people who didn’t want to pay me for my articles. Friends —- including Marcus, sitting across from me —- have sent me several writing opportunities that don’t pay at all. They’ve also shared a few writing “contests” that demand a reading fee.
I decide to go to the park. I want to get away from my office, a.k.a. my apartment. I’ve been reading about the Federal Communications Commission’s (the FCC’s) latest venture to destroy internet freedom, and the article was so draining that I just had to get away for a while.
Now I’m listening to various calming sounds around me. The wind whistles a melancholy tune against a backdrop of other noises: kids laughing, shoes thumping on the pavement as people run or jog by, and people joking with one another about something they saw on TV the other day. It’s all very soothing. I’m in a kind of zone until Marcus snaps me out of it by waving a hand in my remaining field of vision.
“Hey, you know what? Wait. Are you listening to me now?”
“Yes, of course.” I lie, silencing the speech on my old Nokia cell phone.
“I’ve been reading up about the FCC and all of that. You know, about the net neutrality regulations and stuff, including what you’ve sent me on it. About Verizon and the crap they said about how killing net neutrality will help disabled people.”
“Marcus, I came here to get away from that for a while.” I sigh. I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the emails I’m still receiving even when my inbox isn’t open. Every few minutes, there’s a bleep. Then, a synthesized voice tells me I have a new email from a random sender. I soon decide to switch my phone to Offline Mode. I look at Marcus with an eyebrow raised.
“Look, dawg,” he says. He’s hurrying now, as if I might punch him if he doesn’t finish his sentence. “I’ve been thinking about that. Just how useful is the internet to a blind guy?”
I stare at him, without blinking, for what seems like forever. I answer slowly. “Very! It’s a utility if you’re disabled. For me, it’s how I do my job. For others, it’s—-”
“But,” he practically shouts, forgetting his burger and fries on the table, “That’s it!”
I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about or even what direction he’s headed in. I place my hand on his forehead to suggest he has a fever. “You know what, dude? You really have to stop eating all them sweets. I think you’re getting a bit ill. I think you’re turning green!”
“I’m Black, dingy,” he says with a smile.
We both crack grins that could part the Red Sea, and I lean in closer. Instinctively, I shut out all the other sounds so that my attention is completely on Marcus. I can’t see his facial expression, but my ears are locked in and ready to listen.
“What is it? What were you getting at? You want to have me call the FCC and go, ‘Hi, Mr. Fed! Please don’t destroy the internet because disabled people need it’? What’s in your head?”
He folds his hands on the table and leans in even closer, as though we’re CIA operatives conducting a live drop. “Why don’t you show how important the internet is?”
“Excuse me?” I blink. I’m aware of the sounds around me as they come back into focus. A few feet away, a man tells a woman on a cell phone that he’ll definitely pick up the kids tonight. I’m gaping at Marcus. “I use the internet every single day to do every single thing! People know that’s how I work—-online. I don’t understand what you’re getting at there, buddy.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“So, finish.” I steal a french fry from his bag and set it on my napkin.
He smiles and takes the fry back before continuing. “Okay. That’s it, though! You use the Web every day. You do your schoolwork, your job, everything on the internet. It’s important to you, yeah? It is important to you. So, my dear friend, I have a challenge for you.”
I try to steal another fry, but Marcus grabs the other end, and a tug of war begins.
“What’s the challenge? Tweet the FCC what I’m doing every hour, including how it would help the disabled?”
“Tempting, but nope.” The fry shudders back and forth as we lightly tug it away from each other. “Tweet the Tribune every day and tell them why they should hire me?” I yank the fry again.
He snatches it back as he responds. “Nope. Another good idea, though.”
Another yank back to me. “So, what is it then?”
A yank back to him. “Go offline. Go offline completely! No email, nothing.”
The fry hovers between us. I’m so stunned by his dare that I forget to pull my arm back in.
There’s a looming silence. Mocking it, my phone starts banging in my pocket, announcing an email from DePaul University. The subject is something about a seminar.
“You mean, like, for a day?”
Marcus grins and inches the fry toward himself.
I yank it back.
“No, silly boy.”
“A week?” I ask, pulling the fry closer to me. It almost makes it to my chest before he snatches it back. His grin is the size of the United States.
“A month,” he says.
Immediately, I go still. My brain can’t process what he’s just said. A month without using the internet? A month without email, Spotify, Pandora, news, Twitter, and conversations? A month without sending any work in except —- well, I don’t even know how to send my work in without the internet.
“A month?” I squeak. My fingers grip the fry harder than I mean to. I’m so stunned that I don’t even fight back as Marcus gently takes the fry and pops it into his mouth. He chews as he nods. He’s lucky I can see him at this moment. The fry is officially his.
“I need the internet. Literally!” I wonder how I can notice so many ordinary park sounds during this conversation.
“I know you do, Robbie.” Marcus lays a hand on one of mine that’s resting on the table. “That will be the fun of it, the challenge of it. Don’t use the internet for a whole month. Write about it. Keep a live diary of your journal entries and even write down what you see, hear, and experience. Do a running commentary on life without the internet. Write it all down.”
“The FCC doesn’t care about me or this, so why do it? The FCC won’t look at this commentary at all, so why even do this? It’s interesting, but, like, why?”
“Do you have to have a reason? It’s a challenge. And, knowing you, you’ll definitely see, hear, and experience things I’m sure will be worth jotting down —- regardless of whether the FCC reads it. All the same, it will be a cultural experiment. It will just be keeping a journal.” He pauses as he contemplates a title, his expressive brown eyes narrowing in thought. I’m still trying to process his dare as I stare at his bright pink shirt with a red Apple on it.
“Off the Grid. Go off the grid on October 1!”
It takes me a while before I can respond. “I don’t know what that’s going to be like,” I say. I sound almost as if I’m flying into outer space.
He pats me on the hand and his brown eyes bore into my blue eyes. My cane is folded beneath my feet, and my phone has finally stopped buzzing in my pocket. The world behind me seems to fall out of existence as Marcus and I stare at one another. I wait for his reply.
“I know, Robbie. I don’t know what it will be like either. But don’t you think it would be interesting to see? Something to live through, just to see how you’ve changed with the internet, if at all?”
His suggestion does intrigue me. I steal another french fry and eat it, debating my answer as I chew. I have no idea what I’ll do, see, or even experience. I have no idea what will even begin to transpire. I don’t know how I’ll even listen to music. I think for a while, weighing out this challenge.
For a month, I couldn’t use the internet at all. For a month, I’d need to cope with my blindness without communicating via Skype, without looking at email, and without looking things up on the fly on my own. I’d have to use something else, like a phonebook, as a blind person. I’d have to deal with my blindness the old-fashioned way. I’d need to adapt my life all over again.
Marcus is right about one thing: I do need a reason. Taking on the dare of a sighted person isn’t reason enough. And I can’t stop thinking. I’m a journalist. I study technology. I advocate for internet access and accessibility. What could I do to really follow through on this challenge, documenting it the whole time? Perhaps I’m at a unique place in history, a time when this project would make a difference. Before, it would simply have been impossible. What could I document about the pace of these changing times, about the lives of people like me?
I don’t realize that Marcus’s hand is still resting on mine until he shakes it slightly. My vision snaps back to his brown eyes. I steal another fry and pop it into my mouth before replying.
“I accept your challenge, Marcus. It’s a deal. For a month, I won’t use the internet at all.”
He breaks a fry in half and offers me one end, his mouth set in a thoughtful line. “I can’t wait to see how this will turn out.”
I lock him into an intense gaze as I listen to the blip of an iPhone. A woman asks Siri where the nearest steak restaurant is. Siri tells her it’s found seven nearby and that “two are fairly close.” It’s astonishing to consider how many things won’t be available to me. How will I get by in daily life?
Slowly, I turn back to Marcus. Siri is asking if the woman would like to hear some classical jazz. “We’ll see, Marcus. We’ll see.”