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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Winter of Our Disconnect: How One Family Pulled the Plug and Lived to Tell/text/Tweet the Tale by Susan Maushart (view source)
Revision as of 12:40, 2 September 2020
, 12:40, 2 September 2020no edit summary
I approached this book conscious of the fact that I was at one step removed - I'm a grandparent rather than a parent - but also as someone who is uneasy about her own dependence on a computer. I will tell you that it's my job and I’ll proudly tell you that I'm ''not'' on Facebook so that you'll realise that I'm not addicted, but the truth is actually the reverse. I'm deeply uneasy without access to the Internet - and email in particular - and a night spent in a hotel with no net access left me a gibbering wreck. I'm also the person who wrote a thank you letter by hand and found herself wondering why there wasn't an automatic spell check. This was a book which spoke to me personally.
The effects of The Experiment are told loosely in diary form, but it's not rigid and we frequently divert to consider in some depth the effect and the consequences of what happened. I was particularly interested in the discussion on boredom - which I’ve always thought of as a Bad Thing, but which is only so if you permit it to be anything other than a trigger for changes and action. Maushart is also frank about the downside, such as the four-figure bill for the land line landline phone or the fact that the vast amount of time freed up was not necessarily filled with something more useful - at least not immediately.
If you’re thinking about the question of 'screen' usage then this book is gold dust. It's anecdotal but backed with academic studies. As I read I was conscious that a lot of references were very current and I wondered if the book would have shelf life - in ten years will many people be that conscious of SpongeBob SquarePants - but then it struck me that in ten years' time we'll probably look back and wonder why we were so concerned about the situation. By then the screens will probably be implanted at birth.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to Bookbag.
For a look at how children used to fill their time , you might enjoy [[The Lore of the Playground: The Children's World - Then and Now by Steve Roud]]. For another look at parenting styles , we can recommend [[Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua]]. We can also recommend [[How to Monitor & Spy on Text Messages of Your Child Like a CIA Agent by Kidguard]].
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