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151st out of 1,715 books
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402 voters
The Winter of Our Disconnect
For any parent who's ever IM-ed their child to the dinner table - or yanked the modem from its socket in a show of primal parental rage - this account of one family's self-imposed exile from the Information Age will leave you ROFLing with recognition. But it will also challenge you to take stock of your own family connections, to create a media ecology that encourages kids...more
Paperback, 296 pages
Published
May 3rd 2010
by Random House Australia
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The Winter of Our Disconnect is the author's take on Thoreau's Walden, or Life in the Woods-in her case, her pulling the plug for herself and her three teens on the digital world for six months.
The book is uneven in quality-I found the interspersing of journal entries with straightforward narrative an interesting idea that nevertheless felt awkward and not fully integrated into the text-but the information about the digital world and its effect on our children was fascinating. I also enjoyed the...more
The book is uneven in quality-I found the interspersing of journal entries with straightforward narrative an interesting idea that nevertheless felt awkward and not fully integrated into the text-but the information about the digital world and its effect on our children was fascinating. I also enjoyed the...more
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I searched high and low at the chain bookstores before finally breaking down and ordering The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart from Amazon. I just want to let you know that I sit here writing this I have my email, facebook, and two blogs open in Firefox on my computer.
Maushart is a single parent of three who after questioning the effect of decides to enforce a six-month ban of technology in the house, and write about the development. She actually has significant doubt up until the very...more
Maushart is a single parent of three who after questioning the effect of decides to enforce a six-month ban of technology in the house, and write about the development. She actually has significant doubt up until the very...more
I'm not a fan of non-fiction but I thought this was an interesting premise for a book. A single mother of 3 teenagers decides to pull the plug on technology for a couple of months. By doing so, she learns that there is more to life than toying with your I-Phone or connecting with your friends on Facebook. Susan Maushart includes many sociological studies to underline her point that something is wrong. While we have more access to technological communication, our innate social skills have somewha...more
I picked this one up because I enjoy the "Do something for one year" and write about it genre. Cook like Julia, create a Happiness project, don't buy anything new....you know. So the premise here is a single mom and her three teens go screen-less for 6 months. No computers, cell phones, TV, or iPods. Maushart's account is a well-researched, fascinating look at the effects of media on our lives. The brain research on how these tools impacts our kids is particularly interesting to me. We cannot mu...more
wasn't what i thought it would be (a diary or tale of their experience). it had some of that but it was all over the place and tons of (ironically) googled studies that all contradicted each other leaving no formed opinions on anything. even the bliss of unplugging was replaced by the bliss of redoing the family room to welcome back the gadgets after 5 months of bribery (she paid her kids to abstain). the overuse of LOL was annoying and "blobbiness"? i read the whole thing in an Australian accen...more
THANK YOU Maushart family for sacrificing 6 months of precious screen time. We are now able to use your tribulations and triumphs as an eye opening education.I would categorize this book as "Mandatory Reading for All". LOVED it. I am already averse to having technology so readily available at ALL times. This book was a reinforcer to my own beliefs and will (hopefully) be an eye opener for many "tech-ies". Have you ever realized how much we are "pushed" into more and more screen time? This only g...more
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I got this book for a dollar or two off Amazon after seeing a blurb about it somewhere online (yes, a little ironic). I'd already been thinking about this issue for a while, feeling uneasy about the increasingly obvious effects of my lack of restraint when it came to media usage. It was definitely ironic that the day after I ordered the book, we ran over our monthly internet allotment, and I ended up reading it during the ensuing weeklong web-access hiatus. Hah.
In this book, Susan Maushart discu...more
In this book, Susan Maushart discu...more
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Susan Maushart's book, The Winter of Our Disconnect, chronicles her and her three kid's social experiment of undergoing a six month long media diet. If you are expecting an in depth journal-like feel describing the experience, you are going to be disappointed. Maushart does include some brief journal entries in each chapter but her book is mainly filled with research and statistics, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I also found odd that she would randomly repeat ideas and facts about her fam...more
An expertly mixed blend of the self-experimentation-as-journalism trend and a survey of current research on the effect of screen time on your average human being.
The writing is witty and smart, and alternates frequently between a journal of the disconnected experience and more objective overviews of studies that look at the issues just raised by the journal. It's like a television show that changes cameras every ten seconds: just when you're getting a little tired of one format, BAM! There's ano...more
The writing is witty and smart, and alternates frequently between a journal of the disconnected experience and more objective overviews of studies that look at the issues just raised by the journal. It's like a television show that changes cameras every ten seconds: just when you're getting a little tired of one format, BAM! There's ano...more
I really enjoyed the idea of this book. A single mother and her three children going on a complete media fast for six months. Although it wasn't really a true fast since the kids could go to their friends' houses and watch all the t.v., play all the video games, and socially network all they wanted. While this was an option for them, It was nice to see that as The Experiment went along, they chose to do so less and less. The main interest for me was all the research done by the author regarding...more
Susan is a New Yorker who has lived in Australia for years. She's a journalist, single parent and mother of 3 teenagers, all of whom love their technology. So Susan switches them and herself off for 6 months and writes about it. I actually like these "do something for a year and then write about it" books, although some of them do deserve to be called "stunt non-fiction".
Her writing style was a mash-up (lol, technology speak) of diary entries from during "the experiement"; discussion of research...more
Her writing style was a mash-up (lol, technology speak) of diary entries from during "the experiement"; discussion of research...more
I should admit it off the bat: I bought this book because of the title and the cover art. It was on clearance on Amazon and I used it to make the minimum for free shipping, but I was mostly enthusiastic about the allusion. I imagined a deranged-looking Richard Burton as Richard III (but in a wig, of course, since the author is a woman) roaring at some shattered looking teenagers, "NOOOOOOOOOOW! Is the. Winter. Of OUR. DISCONNECT!!!"
The cute image of the little plug sockets (look! The big one is...more
The cute image of the little plug sockets (look! The big one is...more
It is interesting to read about the Maushart family going by without technology in their house. It even makes me want to try my own technology fast.
Ms. Maushart writes this book informally and includes plenty of humor in this book, which is engaging. Throughout the book, she makes conclusions and backs them up with research and statistics. She incorporates her personal experiences with her research successfully. Some of the statistics were interesting, one of them was the one where kids with TV...more
Ms. Maushart writes this book informally and includes plenty of humor in this book, which is engaging. Throughout the book, she makes conclusions and backs them up with research and statistics. She incorporates her personal experiences with her research successfully. Some of the statistics were interesting, one of them was the one where kids with TV...more
Susan Mausharts book, The Winter of Our Disconnect, is about her six month period where technology and communication devices was removed from their home. I came in expecting to read a book about herself, and her teenagers actually disconnecting from technology but was disappointed to find very little writing about their daily life dring the six months. The book is filled with data and studies to backup Mausharts claims and writing with a few brief journal entries and interviews of her children's...more
This book sat on my "shelf" for weeks because I really didn't think I would enjoy it. I had decided it was another quirky book by an Australian, and it kind of is--but it's so much more. I finally just opened it in the middle to take a sample and I was indeed pulled into the story and the rest is history as they say. Susan Maushart is a New Yorker who happens to be living in Perth because (see pages 41-43). She is a columnist who has a wonderful way of taking all manner of the latest research ou...more
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The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale Susan Maushart, Penguin, $16.95 trade paper (329p) ISBN 978-1-58542-855-7
Maushart (The Mask of Motherhood) embarked with her three teenagers on a six-month screen blackout (no cellphones, iPods, PCs, laptops, game stations, or television) to discover if the technology intended to stimulate and keep us virtually more connected was...more
Maushart (The Mask of Motherhood) embarked with her three teenagers on a six-month screen blackout (no cellphones, iPods, PCs, laptops, game stations, or television) to discover if the technology intended to stimulate and keep us virtually more connected was...more
With three teenagers and living in Perth, author Susan Maushart takes up the challenge of banning all screens from her home for six months. All ipods, iphones, laptops and tvs are not to be used, and instead the family must learn to reconnect with each other and fill in their time.
After spending just a 36 hour period with my nephew and his two mates, I was frustrated that I was paying money to take them places and show them things, while their heads were down and they were busy playing competati...more
After spending just a 36 hour period with my nephew and his two mates, I was frustrated that I was paying money to take them places and show them things, while their heads were down and they were busy playing competati...more
A mom and her 3 teenagers (ages 14, 15, and 18) were going to "unplug" for 6 months to see how their lives would change. To begin with, the level that they were "plugged In" was utterly disgusting. Everyone including mom, were either on a laptop, a gaming system, or their phone pretty much 24 hours a day. There were literally NO rules. The 14 year old was allowed to sleep with her laptop on her lap. Apparently, she didn't really sleep that well (duh), so she wanted to be able to play games and...more
Great idea. Timely message. Pathetic book. Maushart is a journalist, and is therefore well researched in certain fields of media and technology, but an expert she is not. While there were glimmers of brilliance in her writing, the rest was juvenile. Her jokes were in poor taste (our first computer had less memory than an advanced alzheimer's patient), her other jokes that you didn't know were jokes always ended in (LOL), and most of the time it seemed like this thrice divorced mother of three wa...more
Interesting premise, great title, and well-written. Unfortunately, it still falls short. I think the biggest problem is that it comes across as idealized. Her children start off privileged and smart, well-fed and well-loved, subject, perhaps, to acne and angst, but living teenage lives that appear flawless. Either this family is lucky in ways they do not even imagine, or the author chooses not to expose the murk under the pretty surface. Do they not suffer from boundary issues, mean words, actin...more
I'm not sure how I came across this book--some random search probably, which is funny considering the content. At any rate, I was intrigued by the premise: a single mother with 3 teenagers--all tethered to their technology 24/7 (including the mom)--unplugs the family for 6 months. They go completely screen-free at their house (and even electricity-free for the first month).
The results are really only surprising if you're the kind of person who's never lived without the latest gadget or limited...more
The results are really only surprising if you're the kind of person who's never lived without the latest gadget or limited...more
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Could you give up your gadgets for half a year? Maushart and her three wired teenagers did, in what she called The Experiment. Recognising the great extent of their collective dependence on technology, and the impact it had on the family's interpersonal relations, this single Mother decided to see just what would happen when games, smart phones, iPods, PCs and other gadgets were banned at home. The book is very well written (she is a journalist for the ABC), cites many studies, quotes facts and...more
Although it took me a while to adjust to the author's snappy witticisms, which I found more annoying than charming, I found this book very interesting. She writes about her family's (her and three teenaged children) experience of living six months without technology. As she describes the changes in their habits and daily lives, she cites research about the effects of technology and its generally negative impact on our world today. I found it helpful to hear about the differences in the way that...more
Jan 23, 2012
Lorrea(Threein3)
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
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I was very excited when I first heard about this book, to read it. My four year old is controlled by electronics and starts to almost cry when they are taken away. We had already decided this year that we were going to cut back on those kinds of things and try more family fun time. Sounds great doesn't it. Well, so far it has been working out great for me. Except when I need a five minute break(I'm home all day with three kids under 5). The TV would really come in handy then, but instead, I dump...more
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I really enjoyed this book. As stated in the title, the author, a single mother of 3 teenagers) decides that their family needs to unplug so she declares their house a "screen-free" zone, meaning no TV, computers, or iPods. The book chronicles their experience as well as highlights some of the different research about how our constantly connected lifes are having on society. As an example, are our brains evolving so that today's children are actually able to truly multi-task. Or better yet, in t...more
This is an important book.
And to follow on from this grand opening statement, I'm going to make another.
This book changed the way I live.
If you follow my blog, or know me, or have seen my office, you'll know that I'm something of a techno-junkie. Not hardcore, you understand, I can quit it at any time, and I just like the way it makes me feel, but nevertheless, I'm typing this review up on my iBook, which is hooked up to two screens for easier data management. Beside me on the desk is my iPad (...more
And to follow on from this grand opening statement, I'm going to make another.
This book changed the way I live.
If you follow my blog, or know me, or have seen my office, you'll know that I'm something of a techno-junkie. Not hardcore, you understand, I can quit it at any time, and I just like the way it makes me feel, but nevertheless, I'm typing this review up on my iBook, which is hooked up to two screens for easier data management. Beside me on the desk is my iPad (...more
I could have skipped the last two chapters, but every other chapter delved into questions about the role of technology in our world today, especially the role of technology in the lives of teenagers today. She has some amazing insights about Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants (though as with many other things, my husband is not easily categorized as the Digital Immigrant that he should be). She talks about adult time and space, and how it has diminished - there is no longer any time where ch...more
I highly recommend that EVERYONE read this book!! Specially if you're already one of those folks who can't imagine going one day without checking your email, updating your Facebook status, or heaven forbid-leaving your smart phone at home! But particularly if you're a parent. Not only will you relate to it, and see a combination of yourself as well as your friends (or your childrens) tech habits and obsessions throughout, but it will also make you nostalgic for the "good old days." I know I sure...more
I would have given The Winter of Our Disconnect five stars instead of four if it weren’t for the fact that in the occasional journal entry in the book, Ms. Maushart sometimes abbreviated certain words, i.e. writing B. for her son Bill or ttyl for talk to you later. The abbreviations were mildly annoying.
Overall, The Winter of Our Disconnect was insightful, enlightening, interesting, and often very funny. At times, I would laugh so loud at passages in the book that strangers nearby would stop tal...more
Overall, The Winter of Our Disconnect was insightful, enlightening, interesting, and often very funny. At times, I would laugh so loud at passages in the book that strangers nearby would stop tal...more
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| The ending! | 3 | 22 | Jun 30, 2010 02:24pm |
Columnist, author and social commentator Dr. Susan Maushart is a mother of three teenagers. For over a decade, her weekly column has been part of a balanced breakfast for readers of the Weekend Australian Magazine. Maushart is heard regularly on ABC Radio's popular online series 'Multiple Choice', and is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia....more
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“...boredom is all about perception. It's a self-diagnosis, plain and simple. If you don't realize you're bored, you're not.”
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“The more interesting life becomes, in other words, the more boredom we are doomed to experience.”
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