Melissa McClements at The Guardianrecently posted a great article showcasing 'the experiment' from "The Winter of Our Disconnect". Gotta love those Brits and how fast they pick up on EVERYTHING. These are people who are seriously into their tech. Personally, I think it's the weather. Below is a quick excerpt from The Guardian article as well as a link to the full version. 'I took my kids offline' Melissa McClements
My children and I
'It's weird when you have to text your kids to come to the dinner table," says Susan Maushart. At the end of 2008, she was anxious about the amount of time her three teenagers spent transfixed by technology.
All she usually saw of her 15-year-old son, Bill, was the back of his head as he played on his game console. Her elder daughter, Anni, 18, binged on social-networking sites and 14-year-old Sussy seemed physically attached to her laptop, often staying logged on to the internet through the night. Over a period of months, Maushart, a single mother, had a "dawning awareness" that something was not right. But when she watched Sussy receive video clips of her friends streamed live over the internet, her worries became "profound panic".
"My concern," she says, "was that we had ceased to function as a family. We were just a collection of individuals who were very connected outwards – to friends, business, school and sources of entertainment and information. But we simply weren't connecting with one another in real space and time in any sort of authentic way."
Maushart, now 52, decided to take action. She initiated what she describes as an "experiment in living" and banned all technology at home for six months. Her family was to discover life without computers, the internet, games consoles, TV or mobile phones (although, kowtowing to the realities of the modern world, her teenagers were able to access screens at their friends' houses and in school). They were to be abruptly weaned off minute-by-minute Facebook status updates about their latest bad hair day.