GUELPH — What's so great about 1986? It was a year of terrifying technological disasters, scary movies, and outrageous hair.

But a Guelph family wants to go back in time and reenact that simpler non-digital/non-computerized era, just for a year.

"My whole life has basically been reverted back to when I was a kid and I'm reinventing that with my kids and using exactly the same technologies that I used back in the day," said Blair McMillan, 26, who was born in 1986.

Those early days of his life, said the Guelph man, had a lot going for them from the perspective of a kid – no internet, no 24-hour news channels, far fewer technological distractions. Playing outside was the default setting for play.

When he saw that his own young children were defaulting to handheld electronic devices for their play time, he and his girlfriend Morgan Patey, also born in '86, decided to rewind the clock.

Since April there has been no internet in the McMillan/Patey home. Instead, he said, the family is exchanging online social networking for real life social networking – sending letters instead of emails, knocking on doors and visiting friends instead of following them on Facebook, taking film-based photographs or hand-written notes and pinning them in a public space, instead of a digital shot or text message posted on Twitter.

In the year McMillan was born, defective booster seals on Space Shuttle Challenger caused a catastrophic explosion that destroyed the spacecraft and killed seven astronauts - while the world watched on television. A technological malfunction caused an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power station sending radioactive clouds around the world in the worst nuclear disaster in history to that point.

That year, Aliens – the second in the acid-blooded predator from outer space series – came out, as did The Fly, a movie about teleportation gone horribly wrong, and Poltergeist II, the story of a haunting by supernatural forces.

And then there were the haircuts – big, bad hair, spiked up, shaved one side, cropped in the front and extra-long in the back. Turns out, McMillan's family wants to reenact that hair as well. He, Morgan and the boys are sporting major league mullets.

"I've been touching a lot of people's lives just through the people that I've met, when people see me and the way I look," McMillan said. "They will stop to take pictures of me, and then I can talk to them. They think what we're doing is really cool."

The social experiment is part of a documentary film project that McMillan is undertaking, one that is not without some dependency on contemporary technology. He is currently looking for a film-maker to take over the project, and perhaps a writer to chronicle the experience.

"We're in the middle of the documentary now," he said. "It's about reconnecting, and basically disconnecting from technology to reconnect with friends and family."

If you want to visit the family you'll have to leave your cellular telephone in the "cellphone box" inside the door and agree to participate in a slice of 1986 life. Inside the house a "ghetto blaster" plays cassette tapes. There is a 1980s television set in a wooden cabinet. Furnishings are very sparse and very 80s.

"When you walk into my house I want you to feel like you're walking into the late-80s," he said.

The effort, which is to last for one year, has not been without some strain on relationships. McMillan and his girlfriend are much more difficult to contact, so friends have been inconvenienced. Some won't come to visit because they are unwilling to give up their cellular devices at the door.

"I'm living in a bubble," he said. "It's very strange. And it's not easy."

Many were the backers of the initiative at the outset, but few supporters are able to abide by the rules of retroactivity. It appears that forfeiting their devices is simply too big of a sacrifice, representing a giving up of their social connection.

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"I really believe in this," he added. "It all came about because I went to ask my five-year-old last year if he wanted to go and play outside, and he said, no, he wanted to play on the iPad."

Even on a gorgeous summer day, he explained, his boy wanted to chain himself to the handheld electronic device. McMillan began to question contemporary public service announcements that encourage parents to get their kids active outside for 30 minutes a day.

"I started thinking about my childhood and how it was the opposite – how do you get this guy to sit down for 30 minutes?" he said. "I started thinking about how different life is these days with video games and the internet."

The further he looked into the issue the more he discovered the dependency young people have on computers, mobile phones, video games and the internet. He talked to people in their teens and early-20s who confessed they couldn't live without their devices.

In interviewing babysitters for his kids he asked what the potential sitters would bring with them to the house. Most said they would bring their cellphone, laptop, and even a high definition projector to watch movies with the kids.

"The reason this is set in 1986 is because that's the year me and my girlfriend were born," he added. "So anything before that is sort of irrelevant. We're basically living like its 1986."

McMillan has a hairdresser that keeps his 80s hairdo shipshape. He wears cut-off shorts and golf shirts a lot, and t-shirts that are relevant to the period.

"I have nothing against technology," he insisted. "It improves fuel efficiency and health care. I'm not anti-technology. I wanted to taste, and I wanted my kids to taste what it would be like without it, and to see if we could actually do it."

The family is saving money, given there is no cable television or internet bill. A rotary phone is about their only form of telecommunication.

"It's been a wild ride so far," he added. "Winter is going to be the big test. We'll have to get some snowsuits."