I choose not to connect a lot.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the wave of the future. Installed a Linux OS recently and I had to have an internet connection to install the other programs I was interested in. For some reason, there was no way to identify which of the Release Disc ISOs had the necessary program files and supporting libraries. I had to track down and add the sources to Synaptic so when I was finally able to determine which files were lacking it was able to go to the repos and download them as well.
Don’t ask about the “Chromebook” that I was persuaded to try out. Doesn’t see a wireless (or wired, I think) network connection and you don’t provide a google / gmail account to log in, and it just sits there.
Biggest waste of money I ever did suffer the indignity of.
Bloody sodding waste of time, it was!