[caption id="attachment_70031" align="aligncenter" width="301"] Canadian Family lives Like it's 1986[/caption]Canadian Family Living One Year on Only Pre-1986 Technology

Guelph, Ontario - In the "Royal City" as it's popularly known as, Blair and Morgan McMillan have decided to spend a year "living life dangerously" so to speak. They've decided that they and their two sons ages 5 & 2 will live at home using only technology in existence before 1986.

“It feels weird,” Blair said. “It feels like we’re really going back in time.”

What's in a year? Simply put, it was the year that both parents were born. As for the decision to go on a technology fast, the McMillans were concerned that their boys were glued to the television, fancy game consoles, and hand held devices at the expense of enjoying life outside.

Mrs. McMillan expressed the comparison of her boys with her own childhood best when she said that she lived her childhood outdoors. It's a concern that many parents have expressed as a negative side to the technology. So they've decided to live one year using only "old" pre-1986 technology.

"That's kind of when it hit me," 26-year-old father Blair McMillan told the Toronto Sun. "Because I'm like, wow, when I was a kid, I lived outside."

What does that mean? For starters, they do not use computers, game systems, cell phones, and internet. They watch movies on an old TV set using a VCR as opposed to a DVR. Their boys are allowed to play Super Mario Brothers on an old Nintendo game system with its CGA graphics as opposed to a modern HD quality wireless game console.

The Register adds:

When he wants to take pictures of his children, McMillan says, he does it the old-fashioned way, using a film camera and sending the snaps out to be developed. Each roll costs him around $20.

The family navigates the roads using paper maps, goes to the bank in person rather than banking online, and looks up facts using a set of print encyclopedias from the 1960s.

McMillan insists the experiment isn't about being a Luddite. "I have nothing against technology," he told the Waterloo Record. "It improves fuel efficiency and health care. I'm not anti-technology. I wanted to taste, and I wanted my kids to taste what it would be like without it, and to see if we could actually do it."

According to the Sun, the plan is to continue living like it’s 1986 until April 2014.

Here's some numbers from Stats Canada on how Candians use technology:

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In 2011, 79.4% of Canadian households had cellphones

In 2010, 78.9% of all households at Internet access at home

Alberta has the highest proportion of households with cellphones (81%) while Quebec has the lowest (69%)

Over half of 21% of households without Internet access said they had no need for or interest in it.

81% of Ontario residents accessed the Internet from their computers and cellphones in 2010.
Over half of Canadian Internet users (58%) used social networking sites such as Facebook and

Twitter in 2010, while 51% indicated they shopped for goods online.

On The Web:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/07/canadian_family_lives_like_1986/

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/31/guelph-family-lives-like-its-1986