Person 1: "I have a great idea! Instead of thinking critically about how we use technology and its impact on our lives -- good and bad -- let's just make some arbitrary restriction that'll actually probably retard our kids in this modern technological world more than it'll help them. Because, as we know, the best way to get children to do anything safely -- from driving to drugs to sex, or all three at once -- is to give them absolutely no preparation or understanding of these things in advance. (Although, to be frank, the mullet thing probably makes sex less of an issue until Junior gets his first used IROC-Z when he's 31.)"

Person 2: "I have an ever better idea! I'll write a short article about it as if you're making some big statement about our over-reliance upon technology that in no way considers what you're actually doing in a thoughtful way! Like how you're losing work which translates to less money and might impact your children's abilities to attend institutes of higher learning, or in a bad economy could cause you to lose your home or worse! Or how you might be negatively impacting them socially! Not to mention making them less able to operate in a global economy which, like it or not, basically requires low-level understanding of modern technology! Because, y'know, iPads are all, like, annoying and stuff."

Person 1: "Gnarly!"

[Fin.]

I'm reminded of those 60's futuristic reels of what the 80's would be like.

Slight tangent:

"The 1950's was the last time in our history people had any taste in clothing" - Patton Oswalt.

In an ideal world, we'll all dress in 50's - early 60's fashion. Computers won't look, sound or even interact with us like computers I.E. they should be invisible and only have their presence known when we have a guest at the door or an appointment. For this, they should remind us with the soothing voice of HAL9000.

Facebook shouldn't exist and news came in the daily papers made of e-ink. My chair would still be made of wood. In fact, "Things" would mostly be made of wood (new-growth renewable) and maybe a bit of steel for extra support. Concrete would also look like timbers.

At the start of the day, HAL will wake you out of your bed in your 16" x 20" rustic cabin in the middle of a forest and start the coffee machine with a carefully measured Arabica with a water temp at exactly 109C all powered by solar + wind. You put on your bedroom slippers made of recycled materials and head to pick up the paper (same one as yesterday, but now with today's news) and it will actually contain bloody NEWS, not some random malarkey dipped in mediocrity. You sip your coffee with your e-ink paper as you watch snow fall outside (it's September, but the windows will perfectly display the outside in winter, because.... well, just because).

... OK, I'm done.

Edit: I initially wrote August. Forgot, it's already September.

> And he's had trouble getting more work, as well, because so many workplaces now only accept job applications online.

There is an intelligent limiting of technology for a purpose, and there is brainless dogma.

They started with the first, and ended with the second.

Nothing new to see here, we've seen those experiments countless times before.

If one of them falls sick, they'll be glad for 2013 medical practices and technology.

Seems kind of harsh on the kids. Sure they don't need tech to play and won't notice it immediately but tech proficiency is so important and this day and age and he's setting his kids back with this, I want to say selfish, project.

So to sum it up: the dad uses a computer at work and drives a 2010 car, but his son wears a mullet and can't have video games. Why are they (minus dad) living like it's '86 again?

> Earlier this year, Blair says, he was hanging out outside the house, and he asked his 5-year-old son Trey to join him. Trey refused. He was too busy with his iPad.

Oh, that explains it.

The biggest risk of this kind of lifestyle is when parents get older they will be disconnected from their kids. (Kids will do just fine... all they need is some inevitable exposures to technology, albeit with some steeper learning curve...)

I actually know someone (not really my own contact directly) with similar lifestyle and what I have been observing is that she is so isolated from information inlet that she started developing high sense of skepticism as with current standard of technololgy adoptations by her peers, she'd be often last person to know everything. (I guess this also gives plenty of time to think about things, and every little things becomes very very big deal for her, but then that might be just her personality. She does show some hostility to people who are "informed" and they tend to become a target of complaints for just about anything...)

We got cable in my rural community in the late 1970's so I don't see why they've shunned cable while claiming that they won't use technology from 1986 and later...

Looking back, I wish that we'd had the internet when I was growing up, as well as personal computers, for I would like to think that my life would have turned out differently had I been exposed to programming while still in secondary school rather than during my mid twenties.

I kick myself for not joining the Air Force, because my test scores were high, but in my youthful indiscretion I chose the Army because it seemed more "manly." (hindsight is 20/20)

I guess that means watching a lot of ALF reruns.

Those kids are really lucky that their parents werent born in 1750, because the kids should already go to work.

Has the Atlantic ever heard of the Amish?

I have a dumb terminal, I figured out one day - that on that serial terminal, I could do about 80% of what I normally do with a computer with it. Next step is to figure out the oldest hardware to use with it, that would still let me hit that 80% target.

I didn't watch the video, but I read the original newspaper article about this family...and newspapers should be somewhat troubled that the family didn't talk about how they were going to re-subscribe to the newspaper in order to keep informed...Maybe they never liked newspapers to begin with, or maybe they just see that newspapers -- in print form -- are far less informative and useful than they were 25 years ago.

I agree, the better thing is to be selective. Dump the TV, and control the other devices. Sign me up for the most modern MRI that my health plan (which I hope doesn't have a tape drive for my records) will pay for.

Medical technology has not really moved forward too much for basic care from 1986 (HIV and new Chemotherapy drugs are the two things I can think of brought to market since then)

Why should we openly accept every new technology?

Well, not so fast. There is a certain quality to those who grew up with computers in their home of that era. We could call it being more "hardcore" or talk of The Little Coder's Predicament in today's era.

Take John Romero, who loved playing video games, but didn't have the endless quarters to play them in the arcade. So he started creating games by programming them, playing them and tweaking them endlessly. And that's where he learned game design (he was the designer of Doom and Quake).

This isn't to say that this is the "greatest generation" of technologists or something -- they were merely well-suited for what came afterwards, which was an exciting time anyway.

However, I will venture to say that those who come of age in the early years of a certain technology, art form or skill seem to have fewer limits on their creativity. When you have stood on the shoulders of giants your whole life, you are much less likely to have "ground-level" ideas. You want to program the next great MMORPG, not a game about mutant camels.

So maybe this is a poor technological environment on the average, but it could be argued that it could engender a rare sort of brilliance as well. Since it seems that there is certainly an eccentric streak at work (parenting as performance art?), that seems like a possibility.

It says they are only doing it for 1 year I doubt one year w/o an iPad will totally ruin them.

"So why 1986, you ask? Because that was the year Blair and Morgan were born. “We’re parenting our kids the same way we were parented for a year just to see what it’s like," Blair explains."

Implicit in your objection are two assumptions I suspect are false:

• That not having access to technology at home for one year will have a meaningful impact on digital fluency 10+ years later.

• That in the technology vacuum no other skills or furtherment will develop which outweigh any minor delay in digital fluency.

I'm far more worried about what kids miss out on by being immersed in (distracting) technology than the negative consequences of them having a little less of it.

Assuming they were willing to continue the experiment, what goes for median level of proficiency shouldn't be that difficult to achieve in a short time. They would probably be better served learning how to operate or program a 1986 era computer. They could still learn about Unix, Lisp, Smalltalk, C, spreadsheets, word processors, (La)Tex, etc. After being exposed to that stuff, they might even be disappointed when they get access to contemporary technology.

Some of the most interesting and free-spirited people I have known are those who weren't exposed to the internet from an early age (even just folks who didn't start using it until they were 16 or 17).

Starting this late, they never reached the level of proficiency required to close the hedonistic feedback loop and learn how to saturate their minds with awful internet memes (and harmonise with the hivemind's sense of humour). They also never adopted the socially calculating mindset that you see in the kind of person who grew up on MySpace and Facebook.

I may be ignorant as I haven't been 5 years old in quite some time nor am I a parent yet, but what would you say this 5 year old child is going to lack developmentally after spending one year as if it's 1986 at his home? There was no mention as to whether the children were home schooled or not so we can assume the child is most likely in the public school system.

If their 5 year old is getting to spend half the day in the year 2013 with his classmates, & half the day with family in the year 1986 it sounds like the best of both worlds doesn't it?

Having an Apple ][ for a year would probably be far more educational than an ipad.

You do have a point in that it's a bit unfair to kids to deliberately make them look odd to all their peers, and they likely will rebel mightily at some point, but I don't really think it will hinder them in proficiency over the long term, especially if they've been encouraged to "hack" and be creative in other ways.