- Oh, it's fully frozen.
The disc won't come out.
This is not good.
I like computers a lot.
I pretty much always have three at my desks,
and that's not to mention
the smartphones, VR headsets, tablets,
and other computing devices I have throughout the apartment.
I spend a huge amount of time on these devices,
and I'm pretty much always connected
to what's going on in the world
and my friends via social media.
But this week, all that's gonna change.
This is the 1999 iMac G3,
and this week, it's gonna be my only computer.
(upbeat music)
I've already put away my laptops and my desktop
and I'm going to be disabling everything
but calling and texting on my cellphone,
so I will truly be disconnected.
But first, got to set it up with a little help
from someone from IT.
So basically, I got this,
this here iMac G3
from 1999,
and this is gonna be my only computer for the next week.
Currently, I can only load like HTML1 sites,
so I've been to google.com, the HTML version.
- Yeah, man.
If you wanna get anything done this week,
you're gonna have to go up to OS X.
You're not gonna get anything done on OS 9.
Yeah, you're gonna need a CD.
- All right.
- It's not gonna boot off of your USB drive.
- I'm gonna be honest.
It felt kinda good putting a disc in.
I haven't done that in a really long time.
Bad news.
I put a disc into this computer.
And now, it won't read it, and the disc won't come out.
I think I got it.
Got it out.
Look at this!
After eight hours, I finally have it running
on OS X.
- At least we have it
in a point where you can maybe get on the internet.
Good luck with that. (laughs)
(upbeat electronic music)
- It was weird waking up this morning
and not just like checking my phone
'cause that's what I would do in the morning.
Well, I did check it and I had no notifications
because I turned off everything.
Today, I am going to try and start
actually working on this thing.
Maybe I should just see how the internet works.
Let's see if Google Maps works.
MapQuest?
That's not functioning.
How about BuzzFeed?
Reddit?
Will this work?
How about my email?
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
(gasps) Oh my God!
So I can get my email on here.
I think I'm just gonna have to learn
to be more patient this week.
Oh, it's fully frozen.
Just trying to load Slack
has basically brought this computer to a standstill.
So what I'm gonna do
is I'm actually just gonna send out an email
to all of the people that I talk to on Slack and say,
"Dearest colleagues,
"I am writing to inform you
"that I have time traveled backwards 20 years."
I have to make a thumbnail
for a video that's going up this weekend.
I've installed Photoshop CS1 on this computer right here.
I'm gonna try opening this PSD.
We've got it reading Photoshop format.
It's actually loaded all of this content.
This is a 20-year-old version of Photoshop
and the document fully loaded without any problems.
Why am I paying for Creative Cloud?
Let's try putting in some photos into this.
Okay, like this is a bit slow
but it's like, it is perfectly usable.
All right, I will send this out.
We'll see if anyone can tell that it wasn't made
in a modern version of Photoshop.
(upbeat music)
So it's day three, and at this point,
I've actually established a bit of a routine.
I turn the computer on
and then I go make myself a cup of tea.
I sit down.
I check my email.
I send some messages.
I respond to some messages.
Then I do a bit of Photoshop work
and some miscellaneous other work.
It takes a while to do that.
So at this point, a couple of hours have passed.
And honestly, aside from not being able to check Slack,
like my day is relatively normal,
full of the same tasks as I'd be doing, just slower.
The one big exception here though is that so far this week,
I haven't had to edit any videos.
So we'll see how that goes.
So I asked some of my friends and coworkers
to send me pictures for desktop wallpapers,
and I only got one.
That's gonna get me through this.
I'm trying to Photoshop something, but it's just so bright.
I'm not gonna get anything done like this with the sun.
Ah.
Usually, in a situation like this,
I would just take my laptop and I'd go work on the couch.
Or if I'm working on my desktop,
my screens are actually bright enough
that I can still see them.
But I cannot see what's on the screen.
It's too dim.
The sun has gone down so I can actually work.
I'm a productive person, I promise.
Don't fire me.
(upbeat music)
I realized that doing this,
I actually don't know what's going on in the world.
So I'm gonna do something
I don't think I've ever done before
and I'm gonna buy a newspaper.
Apparently, there's a presidential debate tonight.
I should probably have known that.
I have a meeting in 15 minutes
that I kinda need to see the screen for
'cause they're gonna be sharing a presentation.
I don't know how I'm gonna join that.
I don't think I can.
Let's see.
Meet doesn't work on your browser.
I might have to have someone send me the slides afterwards.
If I can't figure out how to join this meeting,
I am actually gonna be in big trouble.
I don't wanna get fired.
Like, this is not good.
Thank God Mike sent me these phone numbers beforehand.
- [Operator] Welcome to Google Meet.
- It's weird not being able to see your faces.
I'm not, I don't usually join a call like this
but my circumstances of using this old computer for the week
call for it.
If one of you could just send me the slides,
that would be amazing.
Thank you so much.
No, I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
That actually went all right.
I appreciate working somewhere
where people are understanding
of the stupid things that I'm doing.
I have a little break now,
which means I can get to the real reason
I bought the newspaper.
Crossword.
What can I say?
I gotta have something to do in here.
Spending the day in a bookstore
'cause that's a fun thing to do
and you don't need the internet for it.
At the bookstore earlier,
I decided to buy this copy of Ratatouille
so that I could see if I could watch it on this computer.
I've been craving watching a movie.
Why not watch Ratatouille?
(sings gibberish)
(melancholy music)
I love Ratatouille.
That was honestly not so bad, watching a movie like that.
Like, I guess I was a little uncomfortable
just sitting in my chair, but like not so bad.
For the first time in a really long time,
I stayed up until like three in the morning
reading last night, which was kind of nice.
I haven't gotten that engrossed in a book in a while,
and I think that has something to do
with the fact that I have other things to distract me.
It's actually been relatively easy
to find things to do on the weekends
because on the weekdays, usually, after I'm done with work,
I kinda just want to relax and veg out.
But on the weekends, I wanna do stuff.
And so I find it a lot easier to not be on my computer
or be on my phone because I have other things going on,
like making hot apple cider, which has been really nice.
I've read a lot today.
I played some music.
I walked around.
I went thrift shopping.
Overall, a pretty good day,
and I haven't touched TikTok once.
(soft ukulele music)
Today is the day I've been dreading
because today is the day that I have to edit a video on it.
Not a whole video, but I have to do a little bit of editing.
So I tried installing
a bunch of different versions of Final Cut,
a few versions of Premiere, even some Avid versions.
Couldn't get any of them working,
but I finally got a version of iMovie working.
It's a video editing software.
Let's try that clip.
I could have predicted this.
One single clip is larger than iMovie supports.
Thankfully, I did prepare for this eventuality
and I actually filmed some footage
and converted it last week
to something that this computer may be able to handle
just to see if I can physically edit on this.
Oh, gorgeous.
It's a bit slow but it's working.
I won't make you sit here and watch me edit.
Enjoy the final product.
(soft piano music)
So I am finally free of my best friend for the past week.
I'm really happy to be done
but I'm also really glad that I did this.
I thought I was gonna have difficulty
disconnecting from social media
and finding things to do in my free time,
but those actually didn't really turn out to be problems.
What turned out to be a problem
was not being able to do my job.
Technology and computers have gotten a lot better
in the last 20 years,
and I think we kinda take that for granted.
Really though, this week reminded me
how much time I do spend on my phone.
And I think that going forward,
I'm just gonna have to be more aware
of how I'm using my devices
and strike a new balance of how much I'm using them.
But now, I'm gonna check Instagram
for the first time in a week for notifications.
(upbeat music)