Our Tough Week, Living with Only 1985 Technology

The Week the Gadgets Disappeared

By Christian Murdock
TechNewsWorld.com

12/26/07 4:00 AM PT

The rule: no technology past 1985 in our private lives. At work and school we could use computers and cell phones, but no laptops, iPods, cell phones, the Internet, DVD movies or TiVo at home. I couldn't even listen to my XM radio. Since we no longer have a landline phone, my wife's cell phone became the home phone.

I never thought asking a family to spend a week without iPods, laptops and cell phones would be a big deal. It's not like living in a tent on the Montana frontier in the dead of winter without plumbing. Or is it?

I wanted to send a family back to 1985 as part of our "Technology and Daily Life" series of stories to see how our lives have changed. Gazette reporter Melissa Cassutt and I would document the experiment. However, not one family would volunteer. We even put a plea on the Metro page of The Gazette. No one responded. Sending my own family back to the past was the only answer.

It wasn't an easy sell. Five days, not seven, was the time period that emerged from negotiations.

My 14-year-old daughter would only go along if I bought her clothes and music for her iPod afterward. We never saw my 20-year-old son, Nick, for the five days of our experiment. He still lives at home, but spent most of the time at a friend's house.

Ground Rules

The rule: no technology past 1985 in our private lives. At work and school we could use computers and cell phones, but no laptops, iPods, cell phones, the Internet , DVD movies or TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO)  at home. I couldn't even listen to my XM radio. Since we no longer have a landline phone, my wife's cell phone became the home phone.

On a Wednesday morning my daughter, Alex, and I put our 2007 technology in the bedroom closet and the experiment began.

The hardest thing for me was living without my usual source of music. I was forced to listen to the YMCA's radio as I worked out at the gym. No running playlist on my iPod. I had to stock my Jeep with CDs for road trips. (Kelley, my wife, said I was cheating because I didn't have a car with a CD player in 1985, but I argued the technology was around. However, I couldn't prove that fact at home without using the Internet.)

No Tech = No Social Life for Teen

I also realized that all my contacts' phone numbers were saved on my cell phone. I hadn't used a phone book in years.

My wife and I also realized we didn't have the phone numbers of Alex's friends. We always call her on her cell phone when we need to contact her. Things were rougher for my daughter.

Alex claims she had no social life for five days. How can a teen keep up without MySpace ?

"I can live without a phone," she said. "But I couldn't e-mail  or MySpace people to keep up with all the gossip." Instead, she got it word-of-mouth, at school. "I'm just glad we didn't do it over Thanksgiving break or I would have been behind."

Without the Internet, our eighth-grader had to read books from the library while researching a school project. Without TiVo to record it, she was forced to stay up past 10:30 p.m. to watch her favorite rock band, Good Charlotte, on Fuse TV.

In a moment of father-daughter communication inspired by the imposed austerity, I told her that in 1985 she wouldn't have to stay up to see her favorite bands because MTV constantly played music videos instead of reality TV shows. One night out of boredom, Alex even embroidered a book bag.

After four days of living in the past, she spent the night at her friend's house. Life without MySpace was too much. She had to cheat.

More and Less Connected

My wife had a hard time without Internet banking. She doesn't use a ledger to balance the bank account, instead balancing spending on our credit union's Web site every day. On her daily commute, she couldn't listen to her books on CDs. She tuned in to a classic rock station, which made her feel like she was back in 1985 with Ratt, Bob Seger and The Rolling Stones filling the airwaves.

"I remember why I listen to books on CDs rather than the radio," Kelley said after returning to 2007.

Living without technology had its advantages. I couldn't work from home. No editing pictures on my laptop, no writing on The Gazette photo staff blog. No cell phone to answer. I even got used to exercising without my iPod.

Technology in some ways has made us more connected. We can keep in touch with friends and family through e-mails. Sports scores and headline news are just keystrokes away on cell phones. We can shop or pay bills on the Internet without leaving our homes.

However, in some ways we are more disconnected. During our five-day experiment we spent more time together as a family without all the distractions.

"I learned that you guys had no lives in 1985," Alex said as she typed a message on MySpace.

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