The Winter Of Our Disconnect

Description

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 - and parents - to thrive. When Susan Maushart first decided to pull the plug on all electronic media at home, she realised her children would have sooner volunteered to go without food, water or hair products. At ages 14, 15 and 18, her daughters and son didn't use media. They inhabited media. Susan's experiment with her family was a major success and she found that having less to communicate with, her family is communicating more. At the simplest level, The Winter of Our Disconnect is the story of how one family survived six months of wandering through the desert, digitally speaking, and the lessons learned about themselves and technology along the way. At the same time, their story is a channel to a wider view - into the impact of new media on the lives of families, into the very heart of the meaning of home.

Columnist, author and social commentator Dr. Susan Maushart is a mother of three teenagers - and still finds time to be a control freak. She is a columnist for the Weekend Australian Magazine and is heard regularly on ABC Radio as host of the acclaimed online series Multiple Choice, and is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia. Her four books have been published in eight languages. She holds a PhD in Media Ecology from New York University. Maushart's first book was the award-winning "Sort of a Place Like Home". The bestselling "The Mask of Motherhood" was hailed by the London Times as "a feminist classic," and "Wifework: What Marriage Really Means for Women" started arguments right around the globe. "What Women Want Next" looked at the question of feminine fulfilment in a postfeminist world.