At Poets&Writers, Inc, Stephen Elliott writes about going cold turkey from the hot wire:

I started reading a lot more books, which is good for me since I’m a person who writes books. And I read more challenging books. I would read and write all morning, take a lunch break, and then write until evening. I could feel my attention span lengthening. I would think about problems until I figured them out.

When I ask people why they need to be online, they inevitably focus on the stream coming toward them – the information they receive passively from e-mail lists and messages from friends and associates that contain crucial information. But it turns out that you don’t miss much being offline. If something important and newsworthy occurs, you can find out from the newspaper or The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.