Living the Low-Tech Life

The other day I saw something that made me travel back in my mind to a simpler time. I was driving down a residential street in a quiet Ottawa neighbourhood when something caught my eye. Just as I pulled up to a stoplight, two young girls sprang to action on their front lawn next to the intersection. They leaped like gazelles, twerked and twisted and tapped and jumped to the music that was blaring from a cordless speaker on their front step. They were performing for passers-by, and having the time of their lives. Their driving audience honked encouragement before continuing through traffic. I was one of those girls, approximately 40 years ago.

My dance troupe was made up of my sister and the kids next door when we lived on George Street in Kemptville. We put on front yard ‘shows’ for passing cars back in the ‘70s. We thought our choreography was pretty advanced, and I guess we convinced a few of our teachers too because by Grade 6 we were leading the school through morning exercises to “Heart of Glass” by Blondie. In the days before cable TV I remember working to choreograph even more intricate dancercize routines at my friend Stephanie’s house in Merrickville. That must have been in the days before boys as well. I don’t recall ever having an audience other than our parents, however. They were subjected to regular performances.

In elementary school, life was about ABBA and Elvis on vinyl (“Don’t Cry Daddy” made my sister cry, so I played it often as I could), a well-used library card (I read all 64 Nancy Drew books before Grade 5) and games of Kick the Can as the sun set and the streetlights came on. We didn’t have video games or electronics but I don’t recall ever being bored. Today’s parent has quite a challenge on their hands, balancing the introduction to electronics that is essential to success in the modern world with controlling screen time so that it doesn’t affect their child’s vision, over-stimulate their brain and stifle their blooming imagination.

When I was a stay-at-home mom raising 3 kids of my own, I didn’t have the money for electronics but the girls didn’t seem to be very interested in them anyway. After dinner most nights I turned the music up and switched the lights on in the living room so my little trio of dancers could see their reflections in the big picture window. We boogied and waltzed to our eclectic CD collection, probably entertaining our own local traffic in the process.

I remember a neighbour saying that her son was addicted to video games. That same parent years later informed me that their son’s penchant for video games had helped him to develop heightened reflexes, leading to a career as an air traffic controller.

Today’s kids are so tuned in and switched on, it’s actually fascinating to see them unplugged and discovering fun on their own, completely unfettered by a screen. Outside of sports, it seems the only time we really see kids using their imagination to have fun is when they are somewhere that WiFi may not be readily accessible.

I realize it isn’t just young people who are seemingly preoccupied with screens these days. I stare at a screen all day at work so I have to make a conscious effort to reduce my screen time when I get home. When I feel I have had my fill of social media for the day I pick up a ball and throw it for the dog or sit down on the couch with a good book. The real kind, with actual paper pages.

A few weeks ago I left my phone at work and was without it all weekend at the cottage. I read books and floated around the lake, enjoying a kind of mental clarity that comes from meditation and being in nature. I wouldn’t say that I am addicted to social media, but I do use it quite a bit. I think of it as my down-time, flipping through videos for entertainment, reading news articles to keep me up to date on current affairs. But I have learned to put my phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ and log out of my social media accounts for the bulk of the day, to avoid falling into the rabbit hole. Because sometimes living your best life involves living a low-tech life.

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