Ahmed Sharif   He said to her student. if the internet stopped working for a day . then what  problem may be  . Someone stood up and said the aircraft will be in an accident. After saying sir GPS will be closed. When the hospital's ambulance will not work.And, sir, the more valuable the purposes of the students said. Sir gave me many ideas and more.

“When I tried to introduce the task, there was a class revolt,” says Sharif, who studies the psychological and social processes involved in online communication. “The students emphatically said the assignment was impossible and unfair.”

They argued that going offline even for a weekend would prevent them from completing work in other classes, ruin their social lives, and make their friends and family worry that something terrible had happened to them. Hancock had to concede and cancelled the activity – and he’s never attempted it again. “That was 2009, and now with mobile as present as it is, I don’t even know what students would do if I asked them to do that,” he says. “They’d probably report me to the university president.”

The feeling would be fleeting, however. Losing the internet may make people recognise its importance in their lives, but we would soon be taking it for granted again, says Sharif. “I’d like to say an internet blackout would cause a shift in our thinking, but I don’t think it would.” Even so, that’s still not enough to persuade his students to give it up for a weekend.