Web-reliant people find it tough to give up Internet

Jim Callahan swears he’s a good cook, but unfortunately he had never been called upon to boil an egg. So when he went to make an egg salad, he needed help.

Normally, he would have gone to the Internet for the answer.

But Callahan, 34, of Shrewsbury, Mass., was participating in a study in which he and his wife – and 12 other families in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest – gave up the Internet for two weeks.

The study was commissioned by Internet company Yahoo and OMD, which buys and plans advertising. Families, who were recruited by Conifer Research, were paid $725 to $950 to participate.

Broad conclusions cannot be drawn from just 28 participants. But their video diary recordings – mainly complaints about not being able to get e-mail or find directions – spoke volumes.

“I didn’t realize how tough it would be,” said Callahan, who missed online news and weather, door-to-door driving directions and, of course, e-mail. His and his wife’s cellphone bill rose from $100 to $300 in the two weeks.

Some participants had completely forgotten traditional tools such as the Yellow Pages, said Michele Madansky of Yahoo. Most rediscovered other media, including TV, newspapers and movies.

But the worst thing for Callahan was definitely the egg incident.

“Normally you’re not going to call someone up and say, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m a dope; can you tell me how to boil an egg?’ I would go online. I ended up having to call a friend of mine’s wife, and of course she calls everyone else a day later and says, ‘That idiot Callahan doesn’t even know how to boil an egg.’ I’m still living that one down.”

Aside from personal humiliation, many study participants felt lost and disconnected – literally and figuratively, Madansky said.

But not everyone who uses the Internet is quite so attached. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that although 88 percent of online Americans say the Net plays some role in their daily lives, only 30 percent would have a hard time living without it. For “power users,” the Net is always on, said Deborah Fallows of Pew.

But there were some benefits to staying offline. Callahan said his family got out more. He stopped checking his bank balance obsessively – and started using his treadmill again in the morning instead of surfing the Web.