OP here. Very good question, I should have made this clearer in my post.
The internet is extremely useful. I've learned more from Hacker News alone over the past year than I could have learned from any book. I don't need to list the other benefits; everyone here knows the Internet's advantages.
But...there is a point of diminishing returns. 30-60 minutes of aimless wandering each day can be highly useful. It's the equivalent of keeping your office door open. Can be distracting, but you learn a lot. But I find that if you spend too long on the internet, the value starts to drop off.
But there is much value in reading a book cover to cover, or focussing on a project for hours at a time. I find these things easier to do if I don't have to resist the temptation of the internet in order to do them.
Disconnecting my home connecting was a conscious decision based on the fact that I was spending more time online than I would prefer, and not enough time doing other valuable things. But I do not mean to say that time online is not valuable - far from it.
p.s. TV was a bad example; I don't watch any now. I only included that to show how much time was freed up.
The internet is extremely useful. I've learned more from Hacker News alone over the past year than I could have learned from any book. I don't need to list the other benefits; everyone here knows the Internet's advantages.
But...there is a point of diminishing returns. 30-60 minutes of aimless wandering each day can be highly useful. It's the equivalent of keeping your office door open. Can be distracting, but you learn a lot. But I find that if you spend too long on the internet, the value starts to drop off.
But there is much value in reading a book cover to cover, or focussing on a project for hours at a time. I find these things easier to do if I don't have to resist the temptation of the internet in order to do them.
Disconnecting my home connecting was a conscious decision based on the fact that I was spending more time online than I would prefer, and not enough time doing other valuable things. But I do not mean to say that time online is not valuable - far from it.
p.s. TV was a bad example; I don't watch any now. I only included that to show how much time was freed up.