So Steemit was (more or less) offline for about nine hours, from Thursday night and into part of Friday, due to a DDoS attack.
In no time at all, the FUD started circulating and it seems a lot of people started having "Steemit withdrawals."
Certainly, I missed "doing the rounds," but I went off and did other things instead. But the outage event did make me think about our relationship with technology.
Are You "Addicted" to Technology?
No technology? Go sailing!
I have touched on this topic before... concerning our addiction to technology and being plugged in at all times. I have noticed how people start "fidgeting" when they can't check their Facebook or email every 10-15 minutes.
I have even noticed it while people visit our small art gallery. My wife does short Tarot readings in the store on weekends... they only last 10-15 minutes... and once the person's reading is done, the first thing that happens is that the phone comes out and they "check messages."
Now I can understand some of that-- to a point. I actually have two online businesses and I am an active blogger. On the other hand, I have no issue putting up an "away message" and leaving my phone somewhere else for a day. Or two. A lot of people, however, don't.
Get in TOUCH With the Real World!
Anyway, when Steemit started "behaving badly," I went and did a bit of work in the garden, and I sat down and got started on some art projects I'd been meaning to work on.
No technology? Watch sunsets!
It's also fall and the colors of the leaves are changing, so I went outside with my camera (the kind that's NOT part of a phone!) for a while.
Doing these things reminded me that it's easy for us to "trap ourselves" in a pattern of being glued to our technology. Seems there's always "one more message," or "one more blog post" or "one more thing to research" that keeps us from opening our eyes enough to notice that there's an amazing sunset outside, or that our dog really would enjoy going for a walk or something else.
So even if it is hard for you to deliberately take technology breaks... at least take one when the technology actually breaks!
How about YOU? What did you do when Steemit was not available? Worry and refresh the page endlessly-- or did you just leave the tech behind and do something else? Do you think we're too dependent on technology and the Internet? Do you make a point of taking regular technology breaks? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20171007 13:40 PDT
Being addicted to technology is exactly what is happening to our young people. Also the old farts too. In our house, we haven't watched Tv in almost two years. We don't listen to regular newscasts on the radio. We don't have smartphones - only stupid phones. We are not connected to facebook, youtube or twitter. We are connected to the internet obviously, but we choose when and where. My sons make their living on the internet, but when family time and vacations come around that means a vacation from the internet too.
I guess that makes my family weird by todays standards. I prefer to think of us as being free of technological ties...
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Yeah... I'm one of the old farts; we have three kids who are adult young farts.
The satellite dish blew off the roof during a storm, about 4-5 years ago which was our cue to cancel the service. Sure, we watch movies on Netflix and Amazon, but that's the extent of it. We gave up our flip phones this year because we could no longer get reception in our area... something to do with hills and being too close to Canada-- So far, I have used the "smart" phone to make phone calls. And send a few texts.
When the kids come over from Seattle to hang out, oddly enough we tend to end up sitting on the porch talking or playing board games. Yes, we actually play board games.
Oddly enough, I make most of my living online, and about 1/2 my wife's clients are online and she connects through Skype. But I guess having known a world before the Internet makes a difference.
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I think it does make a difference. We can survive without it, but the newer generations can't.
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I love board games, but don't have many people to play with. We should have Steemit board games... LOL. That game of Risk would take FOREVER!
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I have been discussing this very thing, over the last few day with someone! (I am a lifelong tabletop wargamer, boardgamer.)
I am on the case of how to organize a game/military campaign through steemit.
rules are easy. implementation using the technology, is the issue...
(follow me,if you like, and see what happens)
there is a link to put you in the right direction, of some musings
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/depression-my-story#@lucylin/re-drwom-re-lucylin-re-drwom-re-lucylin-re-drwom-re-lucylin-depression-my-story-20171007t133230686z
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yet you speak...and write..
both of which are technology.
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They are something you learned and can not be taken away from you. Technology that we spoke of can be...
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nope..
that is NOT the criteria.
Language is a technology,
so is math,
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This is gonna spark plenty of ideas. Thank you
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Good-- glad you found it useful.
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What did you do when Steemit was not available?
I paniced
went into a psyschoic rages, broke things...got drunk...
went to sleep..
kidding..
mostly.
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Well, yeah... those are good fallback options.
Just don't wreck the boat.
Then you'll end up all P.O.'d in the morning, too.
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nooooo...not the boat...!!!!
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Excellent advice. I ended up tidying my studio. I did not quite abandon technology though. But as yourself, I did some arty work, but it was on photoshop- as a kind of play. I retouched an old magazine cover.
Perhaps I should have gone out into the nature or gone for a drive in my MX5 or something. Never mind, Steemit is back again ;)
But perhaps tomorrow I will upvote a tree in the forest behind my house :=)
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Sounds like a good plan!
For me, it's just a matter of finding balance and remembering that worry is a pretty useless emotion. That doesn't mean we don't miss something... but some people lose sleep over things they have zero control over.
At one time, I made close to 90% of my income from eBay... in time, I learned to stop freaking out when some branch of the site would go offline for several hours. "We're sorry, the listing application is offline. Our developers are working on the issue. At this time we do not have an estimated time for full restoration." I learned to shrug and move on....
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I agree about how worrying is a worthless pastime. I too was once a great worrier. I move on long since. You cant control everything so the best thing is to have alternatives and try to go with the flow.
Wow, 90% income from eBay that is impressive. Sounds like a good idea for a blog to me. I would be fascinated to read about that. Not because I want to earn from eBay lol, only that it interests me how people have found alternative forms of income i this modern internet world. Just a suggestion ;)
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We do rely so much on working functionality, and we simple think " it must work " and ask ourselves Why is it not working..... and indeed it should work, we are used to it...... unfortunately sometimes it do fail.. and we cant solve it.... so indeed refresh after refresh.... addicted ??? YES ...
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The question is... can we simply say "Damn, it's not working at the moment/today!" and simply walk away and do something else... or do we stay compulsively in front of the page doing "refresh, refresh, refresh" because now our live feel hopelessly empty and incomplete?
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It was actually due to the bad weather,.. so no fun to go out for a walk, run or hike. And I would have gone in the forest instead of reading on steem. But there are moments during the day you would like to see what is going on on steem ,.. and then ,... it didn't work,.. thats a pity for all the steemians.
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You are right, Most people are just glued to their screens and so am i. When steemit was down i was refreshing the page every 5 minutes waiting for it to get back up. I will remember what you have written, and try to use it for good. I really liked your post. @lillieskold
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Always remember, you can get information... and that can break the worry. Google "Is Steemit offline" and you would get many results, including a few Steemit articles published from Busy.org. You can also look at the Steemit twitter, where there were also messages.
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Yea i know after a while i actually checked the twitter to find out that the site was actually down, when i have been sitting there worrying if it was my internet connection that was bad. :)
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Re, "google is steemit offline," I wasn't able to bring up steemit via google, interesting you should say that. I was googling "Error 503" and "Error 502"....I was worried it was something I'd said, that I was banned from Steemit, like you can get banned from Facebook (not that I have, been banned from FB, but a friend has, and I was a bit disappointed when Bejamin Orozco got banned from Facebook, because he was so funny.)
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If Steemit did not involve billions of dollars I would certainly swim on the beach, have a beer and watch the girls go by ... but, the reality is different and contrary to facebook, instagram and etc ... here we have to worry even friend .
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I appreciate what you are saying... but it was easy to determine it was a temporary problem, and then to relax with the idea "It is a technical problem, it will be fixed."
Hopefully next time they will have a "status page" in place of just an error message... but at least there was information on the Steemit twitter.
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I am hooked. But it feels so good.
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Technology is awesome! I'm all about that... but I still need to "get my fingers in the dirt" on a regular basis.
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I was actually taking/needing a break around the same time this bappened so it was perfect.
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Yup... and sometimes the timing just works out. I always have so much non-tech stuff waiting for me to find time to do it that it's never really a crisis.
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Amazing job @denmarkguy Followed...
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man its still laggy idk why maybe only me ?
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This reminds me of a line from Naval Ravikant I read recently:
Lucky for me I didn't know Steemit had been down until reading about it after the fact.
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My personal take on the nature of technologies today...
Apart from education in schools, all computers (and smartphones), would be better with an 18 yr old age restriction.
Preventing the early 'programming' of young minds, would change their lives drastically- In a good way.
These devices stop kids from playing, and developing the brain in a way that we have done since, well, forever.
Without playing, they become 'mal-developed' adults
(imo)
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I read a book, took a walk, called a friend. It was a great day to be without steemit. i miss reading books. I have learned to spend my Sundays preplaning my post to give me extra time during the week.
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Wow! I didn't know Steemit was down. I decided after I joined this wonderful platform for amazing voices that I was not going to get hung up in getting followers or upvotes. I'm here for the conversation. I'm in a very rural setting and off grid, so the weather, the season, and sustainability "chores" limit any intensity I might have. Smartphone connection 4G LTE has only been available here in rural forest for a few years and is not reliable. I do own and manage a very small online business and I am an author and sporadic website blogger. But at my age I just want to live in this present moment. However my past experience does make me very sympathetic to those effected to the unexpected and unwanted "downtime".
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Try another strategy to get people to follow you, this wont work. Thanks.
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@naeenahmed, seriously... NOT a good way to go about building a following. Instead of copy-pasting the same comment over and over, why don't you try READING people's post and actually interacting with them?
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