Odysseus ordered his men to tie him to the mast of his ship so that he might resist the Siren”s song. It’s an instance of what is sometimes called the extended will. So what sort of extended will is necessary to moderate your Internet time?

On his blog, Nick Carr highlights the following from an interview Evgeny Morozov gave in the Observer. It describes how Morozov goes about managing his connectivity:

“I have bought myself a type of laptop from which it was very easy to remove the Wi-Fi card – so when I go to a coffee shop or the library I have no way to get online. However, at home I have cable connection. So I bought a safe with a timed combination lock. It is basically the most useful artefact in my life. I lock my phone and my router cable in my safe so I’m completely free from any interruption and I can spend the entire day, weekend or week reading and writing. … To circumvent my safe I have to open a panel with a screwdriver, so I have to hide all my screwdrivers in the safe as well. So I would have to leave home to buy a screwdriver – the time and cost of doing this is what stops me.”

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Do click through to the blog post wherein you can read an enlightening exchange between Morozov and Carr.