One of the revelatory things about this move into a new apartment (besides finding new gray hairs, new ways to hurt myself and new items I didn’t know I owned) has been how unimportant our lack of internet is.

It wasn’t exactly a choice. We couldn’t schedule an appointment to get service turned on until the last minute, and even then, the company called us back to say “oops, we don’t have any ports left for you.” Given the choice between paying for two modems or waiting until June 1st for service, I went with the one that wasn’t going to cost money for no reason.

Still, it’s amazing how much more I can get accomplished in a day without the siren song of my laptop getting backup harmonies from the internet. What have people been doing on Facebook? What’s the latest big sports story on ESPN? Has anyone sent me an email in the last 10 minutes? None of those questions matter because I can’t waste time checking them.

Look, before we get into all this, let me address this up front: Yes, we do a radio show on the internet, and we depend on its infrastructure to put out a weekly episode and develop a following. Yes, we also post almost a dozen articles a week on said internet for our readers to enjoy. So I’m not saying we should get rid of the internet entirely or anything that drastic.

But this has still been a nice reminder of how much of a time sink this crap can be. And in a way, I’m lucky — I’m not a slave to a smartphone, where this technology can be available wherever the hell I am.

Instead, I’ve been spending time unpacking the house and getting things set up and looking sexy. I went for a couple of walks just because the late-spring weather was nice. I’m going to bed earlier instead of getting sucked into the “one more related video on Youtube” trap.

I’m not saying that I spend every waking hour on a computer. Far from it. Instead, the problem I have is that I usually keep my laptop somewhere nearby, and that continuous urge to see if I’ve missed anything on Facebook or Gmail or whatever else is always there, even when I’m doing something else. It doesn’t matter that A) those things don’t update all that quickly or B) most of the things that show up are meaningless anyway — it’s just this dependency to stay plugged in to the matrix when there really is no need.

So this is my challenge to you, At the Buzzer fans. Put down your smartphones and your computers today and see if you can sever the cyber-umbilical cord that’s been wrapped around your neck. Go outside and enjoy the sights — or if it’s 100 degrees outside, try a swimming pool or something. Yes, it goes without saying that you should check our site again tomorrow to see the new posts (we love you, readers!). But other than that, take a step back from technology on this holiday. You might just find that you like it.