January 19, 2000
Web posted at: 8:20 p.m. EDT

Chat Moderator: Please welcome NotComGuy, Eric Zorn, of the Chicago Tribune, here to discuss with us his week without technology! Welcome, Eric Zorn!

Question from Thebassguy: Eric, how did you survive without email? Folks must've thought you died.

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I noted that my bitter rival, DotComGuy, repeated many times that the questions he was being asked were "excellent questions." Let me comprehensively state that all of the questions now out there, and that I am about to receive, are excellent questions. Now, the question about surviving without e-mail; It was tough.

Question from Cathy: What exactly do you mean by technology free?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I used no computer at work. I turned off my voice mail. I turned off my fax. I used no cell phone, pager, or other device any more modern than the telephone.

Question from AuntieSocial: What technology DID you use? I don't know if I could survive without microwave popcorn. Did you?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I used the phone, as I said, and ink on paper.

Chat Moderator: Do you think it's practical these days to use minimal technology?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I don't think it is, no, not in most fields, not anymore. Too many people count on you to be able to interact with them quickly. This happened to me all week. Others were very frustrated with me. Including my wife, with whom I e-mail all the time.

Question from Lettuce: Did you actually go to the library to get books for research?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I was going to go to the library, but it didn't have the book I needed, so I went to *gasp* a real bookstore and paid for a book with cash.

Question from Indy: Do you see some sort of "sci-fi" factor here? That is, did you miss technology enough to think that we, as a race, may be headed to a point of total technology immersion without which we may be unable to exist?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I think we'll be able to exist, but not as pleasantly. Let me be clear about this: I love technology. I'm close to addicted to it, and have no desire to see us return even to the late 70s, as far as that goes. What I think is that we are going to have to keep an eye on how all this overtakes our lives because it is exceeding all its limits.

Question from SusieDotCom: Didn't it require technology to determine that the library didn't have the book?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: Sure. The phone. I wasn't going Amish for the week. I was going, well, Partridge, if that's a good name for 70's technology -- the 70s when we had few answering machines, primitive computers, if any, and so on.

Question from SusieDotCom: What was the general idea of your adventure?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: The idea was to get a fresh look at how pervasive this technology has become and to see just how far I've come and we've come by looking back.

Question from Eric: I'm sorry, I've come in the middle this, but what do you think the problem with technology is?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: Just to reiterate, I don't think there's a problem with technology as such. The problem I see is that it is able to dominate our lives and waste a lot of our time if we let it. Anyone here read the NYTimes op-ed last year calling computers "Goof-Off Machines?"

Question from Spin: Even with all the fuss about the Web and other communications technology, aren't most people in America basically NotComGuy every day?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I think so, though I had a hard time getting a solid estimate about how many people are actually online now. Best estimate I could come up with is one-third of all households. It is interesting to note, though, that VCRs, which were newtech in the early 80s, are now in more than 90 percent of homes. I fully expect this to be the case with online stuff by the end of the decade.

Chat Moderator: Do you think that technology has benefited humanity to the point where people are "happier" now with all these conveniences?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: Happier and busier, yes, sure. I, for instance, have a much richer relationship with my father than I did before e-mail. We write a lot now and almost never wrote before. And I have found and nurtured many other friendships that would have been lost. And, and, and.... But it does take up an awful lot of every day.

Chat Moderator: How do you feel about DotComGuy's "journey"?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I think it's a big silly stunt, whereas mine was a little silly stunt. I think DotComGuy is doing what a lot of people are more or less already doing...spending most of every day either sleeping or being online. He just gets a little less sun and a lot more publicity.

Question from Chili: Were you accustomed to "chatting" before your experiment?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: Chatting? No, not at all. I used to do chats like this but they were unmoderated and so unsatisfying. I have to say, by the way, that these questions are excellent--or have I said that already?--and that this kind of chatting is pretty interesting. Hope I'm keeping you interested.

Question from Cathy: How many people do you think could turn off the machines like you did?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I think it would be difficult for a lot of people who really are required by their jobs to be available right now online and by voice mail. But most people could do it in their home environments.

One thing I noticed, by the way, when I logged back on after my week as NotComGuy was that only ONE of the hundreds of e-mail messages in my various inboxes was truly so time sensitive that it reflected a lost or blown opportunity. One.

Question from Cathy: Now that you have seen both ways of life, which do you prefer?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I prefer being online. But I also recognize that it's important to keep it under control in one's own life. Maybe a good analogy would be the ready availability of food.

In the old, old days, much of human life was taken up with hunting and preparing and acquiring food. Very few people could overeat. Willpower was not necessary in this regard. But technology--modern farming, refrigeration, etc.--has made it so that most of us can eat pretty much what we want when we want it.

I see the online world as entering that stage now of being so available that, like TV, people are going to have to set artificial limits. It will be so fast, so ubiquitous, so necessary to many things that we're going to have to set boundaries.

Question from Sammy: Eric, 10 years from now, do you think that the world will be NET BOUND? And if so, what kind of effect do you think this will have on Third World countries that don't have the technology to keep up with the rest of the world?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I think yes, the world will be netbound and I also think that this information-gap, or digital divide or whatever, between rich and poor (nations and people) will be a looming issue for us to deal with.

Question from Benji: How well are you taking breaks from online activity now? Maybe not as much as you'd like?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: Today was brutal. I've been online all morning reading stuff and answering some of the email that piled up (non urgently). And I do have a job I'm supposed to be doing.

Question from Cathy: What is the optimal balance for life and technology?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I suppose that which gives one time to spend time with real people doing real things. Hmm, that's not an excellent answer, is it? Well, I guess it would vary widely with the individual--the other demands in his or her life.

Question from Mags:So, overall, what did you learn from you techno-free experience? Will you spend less time now using computers at all ?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: I will try to block out the time I spend online and to avoid checking my email 20 or more times a day. I feel it's important to set aside time for it lest the experience spread into every hour of the day.

Question from Cathy: How do you see us interacting with machines in the future? Will we become more dependent?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: Absolutely. I found, for instance, that I am unable to write much of anything without word processing software, that I rely heavily on voice mail.

Question from AnnD: How was your spelling without the spellchecker?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: My spelling has always been marginal. I blame it on the University of Michigan, where spelling is insufficiently emphasized. Or is it insuficiently?

Chat Moderator: Do you have any final comments you'd like to leave us with?

Eric NotComGuy Zorn: A couple, yeah, sure. First, I apologize to anyone who saw in my Tribune column today that this chat was going to be on at 12:30 Central Time. I'll take email complaints to YouAreRightEric@aol.com

Also this: I'm not opposed to this kind of technology at all, and I don't want the NotComGuy experiment to come off as a call for any kind of return to those days of Partridge. This is fun and very useful stuff. You all know that because, well, you're on here reading it and chatting with each other even as we're chatting.

But what I found was that we need to keep in mine that there is a distinction between what's necessary and what's fun, what's immediate, and what's urgent. Life slowed down very nicely when I wasn't checking my email all the time. I, anyway, am going to try to check it less often and not worry so much about who might be trying to contact me right at the moment. Most of it, I found, can wait a while.

Chat Moderator: Thanks so much for joining us, NotComGuy!! A transcript of this chat will be available in a few days at http://cnn.com/chat.