Technology Slice Blog

Mom Challenges Family to Unplug - Susan Maushart lived out every parent's fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers. For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games. The eerie glow of screens stopped lighting up the family room. Electronic devices no longer chirped through the night like "evil crickets." And she stopped carrying her iPhone into the bathroom. The result of what she grandly calls "The Experiment" was more OMG than LOL — and nothing less than an immersion in RL (real life). Mom Challenges Family to Unplug As Maushart explains in a book released in the U.S. this week called "The Winter of Our Disconnect" (Penguin, $16.95), she and her kids rediscovered small pleasures — like board games, books, lazy Sundays, old photos, family meals and listening to music together instead of everyone plugging into their own iPods. Her son Bill, a videogame and TV addict, filled his newfound spare time playing saxoph...