Toronto Family Bans All Technology In Their Home Made After 1986 534
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mary Am Shah reports in the Toronto Sun that 26-year-old Blair McMillan has banned any technology in his house post-1986, the year he and his girlfriend Morgan were born. They're doing it because their kids – Trey, 5, and Denton, 2 – wouldn't look up from their parents' iPhones and iPads long enough to kick a ball around the backyard. 'That's kind of when it hit me because I'm like, wow, when I was a kid, I lived outside,' says Blair adding that now 'we're parenting our kids the same way we were parented for a year just to see what it's like.' The McMillans do their banking in person instead of online. They develop rolls of film for $20 each instead of Instagramming their sons' antics. They recently traveled across the United States using paper maps and entertaining their screaming kids with coloring books and stickers, passing car after car with TVs embedded in the headrests and content infants seated in the back. Their plan is to continue living like it's 1986 until April 2014. Morgan, who admits she thought her boyfriend was 'crazy,' now devours books to pass the time and only uses a computer at work. 'I remember the day before we started this, I was a wreck and I was like I can't believe I have to delete my Facebook!' Blair originally experienced a form of phantom pain for the first few days after giving up his cellphone. 'The strangest thing without having a cellphone is that I could almost feel my pocket vibrating and I wanted to check my pocket.' Still Morgan says the change has been good for their family's spirit. 'We're just closer, there's more talking,'"
Re:USENET? (Score:5, Informative)
Can they still use the USENET using an IBM PC Compatible?
Well, you've inadvertantly raised an issue I've already commented on elsewhere. (*) Just because a technology existed or was theoretically available to people in 1986, doesn't mean it was likely that ordinary people would have it. The article states:-
“We’re parenting our kids the same way we were parented for a year just to see what it’s like,” Blair said.
For example, the issue I commented on was in response to someone saying that CDs existed in 1986. While this is true, they were still relatively expensive at the time- yuppies and audiophiles probably had one to play their copy of "Brothers in Arms" on, but Joe Average and his friends probably didn't. It would be another couple of years before they would start to take off in truly mass-market terms.
:-)
Mobile phones existed in 1986 [apeculture.com], but they were bloody expensive to both buy and use, so even if you could get a Motorola brick to work with a modern network, it wouldn't have been an item that most people would have had at the time.
The Commodore Amiga computer mentioned later in the thread came out in 1985, but the original A1000 was expensive (RRP US $1300 on its release, plus another $300 for the monitor- double those to account for inflation) so I doubt most people would have had one. (The more affordable Amiga 500 that was massively popular in Europe at the end of the decade wasn't available until 1987).
The USENET reference you made? Better-off households may have had IBM PC compatibles (at least in the US) and some may have had access to dial-up proprietary walled-garden online services, but Internet access was *not* common then. Most people hadn't even heard of it back then, and probably couldn't have afforded it if they had.
Er... can you spot a pattern here?!
The point I'm making is that if one simply wants to use technology that existed in 1986, then all these things and more qualify. But if one wants to represent the technological experience of an average person living at that time, then it's more questionable if they should be used.
(*) Nope, it's not a new story- sorry, folks!
Re:Not too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
but for fucks sake the other kid IS FUCKING TWO YEARS OLD and the other one is FIVE - . and they go on an ultra ban on everything because they can't put the ipad on the top shelf - hell, I'd be proud if they could operate them, even iOS involves quite a bit of reading and even with familiar icons I bet the dad had to start the angry birds for the two year old one. they could have just bought them a ball.
You are severely underestimating 2 year olds. My daughter figured out how to unlock the iPad, page around until she found netflicks, open it, find Curios George in the recently watched list, and start it playing. And this was when she was 18 months old. And yes we had to sharply curtail her iPad time. She's supposed to be learning to explore her world physically at this age, not zone out in front of a screen.
We do still let her play for a few minutes a day because it is good for her to learn the tech, but too much screen time is IMHO counterproductive at her age. Besides after an iPad session she's always a huge grump.
Re:Like with everything else, moderation (Score:5, Informative)
Even though I agree with what you're saying, moderation is something that is hard to achieve if you're already out of control. Moderation is hard to achieve unless you have a concrete goal. Moderation is hard to achieve if you're a young child.
I see what they're doing as entirely reasonable. It isn't all that different from families in the 1980's refusing to get a video game console or computer, banning television from the household, or the many other things that could be construed as anti-technology. And yes, that was fairly common back then. And no, it wasn't always based upon cost.
The only reason why it feels weird is because they said they're living like it's 1986 and because electronics have become so ingrained in our lives that many people refuse to accept that anyone can live without it.
Re:they are doing it wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, in NZ "fush" is the present tense of fish. Contrast with Australia, where it is "feesh".
Re:Tech isn't the problem it's bad parenting (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the Amish beliefs fundamentally aren't about technology - it's based on a very literal interpretation of a biblical command to "not yoke oneself under the non-believers", which they believe puts them at risk for being forced to abandon their faith. They use electricity, but because buying power off the grid would break that command, they run them off generators (under the theory that the electric lines could be cut off at any time, but generator fuel can be stockpiled). Likewise, they cannot own phones, but they found a loophole there as well - have public pay phones installed, with extra-loud ringers. This way they can pay straight-up for each call. Similarly, they do not rent land (except maybe from each other).
They follow all their rules this way. Remember that bit about "give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"? Even though they do not use nearly any social services like public schooling, they pay all their taxes, even many that they could technically opt out of (I think they do refuse Social Security taxes, legally, but they pay all the others). And for their strictures against military clothing? They consider buttons to be military wear - all their clothes use ties (or perhaps nowadays zippers or snaps). Although they do seek out loopholes - their beliefs forbid purely decorative pictures, so they tend to have numerous calenders, which, because they serve a functional purpose as well as have decorative imagery, are perfectly fine.
Sure, there probably are plenty of Amish who think technology itself is bad, or the whole nature thing. They're a varied culture, not completely uniform. But the core reason for it is based on some odd religious interpretation, not beliefs about technology itself.
You're a pretentius douche (Score:5, Informative)
The first step is admitting you have a problem, seriously. Child abuse because the kids don't have an iPad? Now you're insulting children who are really abused. There are millions of people in this country right now who function daily without cell phones or even yes the internet.