Your comment about the TV and internet reminded me of a shiur I once heard from Rav Ezriel Tauber:
He too was traveling, and was delayed overnight after a long hard day. The airline put him up in a fancy hotel with a huge TV screen and internet access. Being Rabbi Tauber, these posed no real challenge for him though, and he took out his sefer, sat on the couch and proceeded to learn. But as much as he tried to concentrate, within minutes he was fast asleep! After a significant period of time, he woke up and started to cry. "Tatty, my grandparents were workers. They rose at dawn, put in a whole day of hard physical labor and returned home totally spent. But what did they do a soon as they got home? They went to the shul and spent the next few hours learning, regardless of their exhaustion. Their learning came at tremendous personal sacrifice. And me? I spent my day traveling and speaking, not backbreaking labor, yet I can't even give You the pleasure of a few hours learning??"
But then he stopped and put it back in perspective. "Previous generations served You with "asei tov". I will serve via "sur me'rah". Here I am Tatty, faced with a huge TV screen and full internet access. I am all alone, so no one will ever know if I turned them on. No one but You and I. And this is my gift to both You, and myself. My karbon of self sacrifice will be not touching those 'on' buttons."
Every second that we withstand the test and don't give in to our personal teivos, is no less precious to HKB"H than the karbonos our grandparents brought in the Beis Hamikdash. 'Sur me'rah' is the challenge of our dor.