Our 'unplugged experiment'

Some of you may have heard about our recent experiment.  It actually gives me a good excuse for once for being so behind on my blogging, haha.  But that is not why we are doing it.  Our experiment is to go for 2 months without electronic entertainment.  I do check my email, and we keep a running list by the computer of things we want to look up on our research day, which is once a week.  But no nintendos, handheld games, surfing the web, video games, chatting, or even educational games are being played on the electronics.  I let the kids type on microsoft word, and sometimes we get on LDS.org for Sunday lesson materials and to listen to conference talks. We may have an occasional family movie if Mom and Dad decide to.  But that is all.  Or at least that is what we are shooting for.  Both Mike and I have slipped up sometimes, letting email lead to other things, or for me, answering a message sent through facebook often leads me to want to take a peek at what people's statuses say and then, poof, an hour of my life is sucked away and I find myself feeling sheepish for breaking our rules and setting a bad example.  This may sound like a crazy thing to do, especially when it is 100 degrees or more all day every day outside and I can't send them out there to play.  Sometimes I think it was a crazy idea, like when they are playing together (a good thing) so loudly that I can't think straight (a bad thing).  Those electronics did make nice babysitters that kept them quiet and still for substantial amounts of time.  And I do enjoy connecting with my friends on the internet and having a little 'getaway' of my own occasionally in cyberspace land, a little diversion and relaxation.

So here's why we are doing this.  In case anyone is wondering.  I wanted to see if we can do it.  Not so much in a 'double dare you' kind of way, but because I was seeing in both my kids and myself a tendency to feel like we needed that electronics time in order to be happy.  It has become an addiction to a lot of the kids and to me.  When I got stressed or the kids were bugging me, I would go check facebook or read some articles.  If there was a job that really needed doing and I didn't want to, I would go write to a friend instead.  If relationships in real life were not what they should be, instead of working on those or going to the Lord for guidance, I would go see what the internet had to say about it.  Or just find some distraction from it by studying up on other, more pleasant things.  It was all good stuff I was doing, keeping in touch with loved ones, reading educational or uplifting articles, getting ideas for homeschool, only occasionally watching a silly video on youtube, so it couldn't be bad, right?

The kids were not much better, although their diversions were different.  They just didn't feel they could be happy without having played some video games each day.  Even when we went on fun day-long outings and had a great time, at the end of the day they would complain if they hadn't had their half-hour of video games.  If they couldn't play them, they would complain they were bored, and it seemed like they didn't have much creativity in coming up with fun things to do on their own. 

I mentioned to Mike several months ago that I thought we might all need to unplug completely for a while, just to prove to ourselves that we could do it and discover how life would feel without it.  He didn't like that idea at the time, he was under plenty of stress and he liked his electronic stress relievers as well as the rest of us.  But the idea hung around until about a month later, when he came home and it took all of us about an hour to realize he was even there, because we were all engrossed in our electronics.  So he decided it was time, like it or not.  And our experiment was born.

So here we are, halfway through the two months.  (I'm allowing myself a day to catch up on the blog and record how we are faring at the halfway point)  And I have to say, while there have been positives and negatives, it has been overwhelming a good thing.  Not saying it is good or even necessary for every family, but ours needed this.
Some positives that have happened so far:
The kids are becoming much more imaginative in their play, reading a TON (we go to the library weekly and get probably 50 new books each time), finding new interests, and learning a lot.
Mom is getting much more done around the house and on her personal interests and goals that have sat waiting on shelves for a long time.  Crafts, dancing, my own reading and studying, all those things I say I'll do 'someday.'
Family activities and meals are not rushed through or whined through in order to get home and get kids' computer times (this happened before quite often).
Mike and I are spending more time together when he gets home and able to help each other with our stresses.
Things around the house or with the kids that need fixing that we had been ignoring or unaware of are becoming more clear, and that helps us start to address them.
There is more time for personal prayer, scripture study, and pondering when there is not data being fed to you all day long.

Some negatives that have come up:
Yes, there has been some whining some days.  More so after the kids have visited friends who have electronics (I let them play when they are at their friends houses).  Interesting how when they get it that is when they miss it, but after they go without for a while they are very happy without it.
They are interacting more.  Yes, this is a positive too, but it also means more opportunity for fighting and arguing.  I don't know if there has been more fighting, maybe there has even been less, but when things get dicey it used to be nice to be able to let them play a video game and, voila, everyone is quiet.
The internet is much more convenient than other methods for getting certain things done, like looking up people's phone numbers and addresses, or contacting several people at once with information they all need to know, rather than calling them all.
There are many great educational things on the internet that I would love to have our family participate in but we are missing right now.

Overall, I still feel like this has been and will continue to be worth it, because we are learning a new habit and becoming empowered.  I know I still have some addictive tendencies hanging on so I am grateful to have another month to make a new habit and to come up with a plan of action so that when we get back online, I will be able to do it wisely and manage my time well.  I want us to control the electronics and not let them control us.