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how does getting away from technology impact your brain?
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I do get away from technology, like most of this past weekend. I think it is all just a balancing act. Just like a good diet is made up of different types of food.
All three of my kids just started serving a complete media ban - television, computers, video games - that will last until school starts. Fighting, arguing, not listening, giving my wife a hard time while I'm at work... You know, same story/different day.I don't know what it is, but they're a lot more laid back, less aggressive, and more compliant when they're NOT connected to the grid than when they are. I took them to the library on Saturday and told them to load up with enough reading material to last for three weeks.
I give myself a break from technology at least a couple of times a year. I try to time it around vacations.When I'd visit my friend's farm in north Arkansas, there was no signal out there... so I didn't really have a choice and certainly welcomed the disconnect from everything. It was returning to my routine and technology that's typically disorienting to me. I'd get inundated with messages from friends and family as soon as the signal on my phone would start working again. And even though there is a signal at my mother's home, I try to be completely focused on being with my family when I'm with them... so no internet or phone or television if I can help it.
I also don't watch television (it's in the attic) in my home as a general rule... just the occasional movie on my laptop.
Wow Clark. Way be be Mr. Hard Ass Dad! They'll be speaking to their friends about this nightmare for years. Seriously, this sounds like a great idea, especially at their age. My oldest (21) often claims that she never saw television as a child that was not PBS. She says all of her cultural references from 1989-1995 include Wishbone, Sesame Street and Arthur, nothing else. No cable, no video games, no network crap. Poor thing.
Cynthia wrote: "Wow Clark. Way be be Mr. Hard Ass Dad! They'll be speaking to their friends about this nightmare for years. Seriously, this sounds like a great idea, especially at their age. My oldest (21) often..."
It's the only thing that works on them, Cynthia. I say hit 'em where it hurts. My son had to endure the same thing for the entire first month of this summer after we found a workbook he was hiding from Health class that he only got a 45/100 on because he didn't complete most of it. In friggin' Health class fer Christ's sake. Lazy...
Anyway, this spiralled way off topic. I'm not saying you can't learn things from television and the internet, but I fear their little minds will turn to mush if my wife and I don't regulate things.
Cynthia wrote: "My oldest (21) often claims that she never saw television as a child that was not PBS. She says all of her cultural references from 1989-1995 include Wishbone, Sesame Street and Arthur, nothing else. No cable, no video games, no network crap. Poor thing."And she made it through, didn't she?
I'm the last one to talk about watching TV as much as I did it as a kid.
She made it through just fine. Those Wishbone episodes must have paid off--she is now the #23 reviewer on Goodreads and a voracious reader!!
Cynthia wrote: "She made it through just fine. Those Wishbone episodes must have paid off--she is now the #23 reviewer on Goodreads and a voracious reader!!"Good job, Mom!
I can only take a tiny bit of the credit. 'Cause then if she or her sister mess up, I only have to take a tiny bit of the blame. I'm tricky that way.
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You know, I used to leave my laptop home sometimes, on trips, but now I have my phone, which might as well be a laptop, and I probably don't turn it off enough.
Have you had extensive time away from tech? What was it like? I don't like the assumption that getting away from tech is always better, but staying always on tech isn't good, either, I get that. What do you think?