I mostly enjoyed this book. The only reason it fell short of four stars was that it is very focused on parents, and as I don't have children there were sections that left me pretty cold. I also suspect that some of these sections were a result of the rule of contemporary non-fiction publishing that every book must be at least 250 pages, whereas this one would have made an excellent 150-200.

I picked it up expecting it to be a hilarious farce, having read Susan Maushart's columns in The Australians over the years, but it turned out to almost be self help. It is structured around [a:Henry David Thoreau|10264|Henry David Thoreau|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1392432620p2/10264.jpg]'s [b:Walden|16902|Walden|Henry David Thoreau|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1465675526s/16902.jpg|2361393], which I loved when I read it, and may now reread. The theme regarding place and how we may numb our sense of displacement with technology really struck a chord with me. There were also some poignant moments as the relationships between her children changed, apparently due to The Experiment.

Maushart's writing is good, and occasionally laugh out loud funny, but it's also a little bit patchy. ( )

Check out my review at:
http://www.shannonsbookbag.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-winter-of-our-disconnect-mau... ( )

Excellent book about getting the mix of technology and family life right ( )

Long title, interesting story. Within these pages we go to a place no one from our day and age seeks to tread. A place devoid of all site and sound...well, at least all sites and sounds that come from the gadgets and gizmos we've acquired. That's right. No more iPods. No more eBooks. No more netbooks, laptops, desktops or iPads. The goal? To see how "the Experiment" (as it came to be known) would impact their over all quality of life.

A dash of humor, a twist of digital decay, and the right amount of reflection (and self-realization) to spice things up, this is one read for both those self proclaimed connection junkies as well as those that wouldn't know a "LOL" from a "ROTFL". With many options to research the statistic and data strewn throughout the pages, further reading is merely a look in the "notes" section away. Long story short ...if you ever doubted, wondered, or even speculated the effects of the digital world on our lives, this ones for you. ( )

In 2009, journalist Susan Mauhart came to the realisation that her three children – and herself – were over-consuming screen media (tv. computer games, and predominantly the internet). In fact they were positively inhaling it. Fed up of conversations with the backs of their heads, and not being able to do anything as a family because all they all wanted to do was get back to their screens, she imposed a six month moratorium on all screen related media. This book is a journal of those six months as well as studies and observations about the effect of media – particularly social networks – on individuals, and the knock-on effect on family.

The effect on the family are perhaps not unexpected. After the initial shock, the family began to spend more time together, enjoyed lingering family meals where they would talk – genuinely talk – about their day, and they took up new interests (or resurrected old ones). But despite being able to guess pretty much how the family dynamic would change, this book did make it’s point very well. And bear in mind this experiment was in 2009!! Facebook was big but only five years old – and MySpace was still hugely popular. Twitter was just three years old, and neither Instagram nor Pinterest had even been invented. So as obsessed as Susan’s three teenage children – Anni, Bill and Sussy – seemed to be, it was probably nothing compared to the kind of thing you see everywhere today – people of ALL ages walking round, head down, glued to the phone. People sitting in restaurants together, but both distracted by their own screens. Even the rate of people getting knocked over in traffic has risen year over year since 2013, because of what is known as the ‘head-down generation’ – people crossing the road while looking at their screens instead of traffic.

So this book does provide food for thought, taking into account the effect of too much screen time on babies and toddlers as well as older children and teenagers. I personally found Maushart’s writing style to be witty and engaging, and this made it an easy read. As she herself observes, when writing about social media, everything is out of date almost as soon as it’s printed, and this is writing about something that happened eight years ago, but the point it makes is still valid.

For anyone interested in the effect of social media, I would recommend this book. ( )