In early 2012 I was 26 years old and burnt out. I wanted a break from modern life — the hamster wheel of an email inbox, the constant flood of WWW information which drowned out my sanity. I wanted to escape.

I thought the internet might be an unnatural state for us humans, or at least for me. Maybe I was too ADD to handle it, or too impulsive to restrain my usage. I'd used the internet constantly since I was twelve, and as my livelihood since I was fourteen. I'd gone from paperboy, to web designer, to technology writer in under a decade. I didn't know myself apart from a sense of ubiquitous connection and endless information. I wondered what else there was to life. "Real life," perhaps, was waiting for me on the other side of the web browser.

My plan was to quit my job, move home with my parents, read books, write books, and wallow in my spare time. In one glorious gesture I'd outdo all quarter-life crises to come before me. I'd find the real Paul, far away from all the noise, and become a better me.

My goal would be to discover what the internet had done to me over the years

But for some reason, The Verge wanted to pay me to leave the internet. I could stay in New York and share my findings with the world, beam missives about my internet-free life to the citizens of the internet I'd left behind, sprinkle wisdom on them from my high tower.

My goal, as a technology writer, would be to discover what the internet had done to me over the years. To understand the internet by studying it "at a distance." I wouldn't just become a better human, I would help us all to become better humans. Once we understood the ways in which the internet was corrupting us, we could finally fight back.

At 11:59PM on April 30th, 2012, I unplugged my Ethernet cable, shut off my Wi-Fi, and swapped my smartphone for a dumb one. It felt really good. I felt free.

A couple weeks later, I found myself among 60,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews, pouring into New York's Citi Field to learn from the world's most respected rabbis about the dangers of the internet. Naturally. Outside the stadium, I was spotted by a man brandishing one of my own articles about leaving the internet. He was ecstatic to meet me. I had chosen to avoid the internet for many of the same reasons his religion expressed caution about the modern world.

"It's reprogramming our relationships, our emotions, and our sensitivity," said one of the rabbis at the rally. It destroys our patience. It turns kids into "click vegetables."

My new friend outside the stadium encouraged me to make the most of my year, to "stop and smell the flowers."

This was going to be amazing.