GUELPH

If you ever need to know who was the prime minister in 1960 and you’re willing to wait 10 minutes for the answer, Blair McMillan is your man.

He’ll take his time carefully thumbing through a volume of his vintage encyclopaedia set, donated by a bewildered soul who probably wondered why the 26-year-old father of two couldn’t just get an Internet connection.

The thing is, Blair and his girlfriend Morgan, 27, are pretending it’s 1986.

And they’re doing it because their kids – Trey, 5, and Denton, 2 – wouldn’t look up from their parents’ iPhones and iPads long enough to kick a ball around the backyard.

That’s why their house has banned any technology post-1986, the year the couple was born.

No computers, no tablets, no smart phones, no fancy coffee machines, no Internet, no cable, and – from the point of view of many tech-dependent folks – no life.

“We’re parenting our kids the same way we were parented for a year just to see what it’s like,” Blair said.

They do their banking in person instead of online. They develop rolls of film for $20 each instead of Instagramming their sons’ antics.

They recently traveled across the United States using paper maps and entertaining their screaming kids with colouring books and stickers, passing car after car with TVs embedded in the headrests and content infants seated in the back.

The plan is to continue living like it’s 1986 until April 2014. The only exception to their downgraded lifestyle is their car, which remains a 2010 Kia minus a GPS.

TAKE OUR ULTIMATE '80s QUIZ

TheToronto Sunspent three hours at the McMillan’s Guelph home, getting a glimpse of their drastically different life.

They recently moved into the home because it was built in the 80s.

Instead of a TV, the minimally furnished living room – which looks like a floor model plan from a vintage store – has a large centred window that looks out onto the leafy neighbourhood.

A book shelf rests in one corner and a bright pink cassette player sits on top of a wooden trunk. There is a wooden box-like TV hooked up to an old-school Nintendo in the basement. One of Blair’s sons was busy playing a favourite childhood video game on it — Super Mario.

“It feels weird,” Blair said. “It feels like we’re really going back in time.”

In a country where Statistics Canada says eight out of 10 households have Internet access, it is pretty much like stepping into a time machine.

Fully committed to living like an ‘80s man, Blair answered his door dressed in a baseball jersey and denim cut-offs. His crowning glory? A mullet and a bushy moustache.

“Business in front, party in the back,” he said with a grin.

Even his kids sport the same hairstyle.

The family started shunning technology after Blair asked his son Trey to join him in playing outside.

Unfortunately, Trey opted to continue swiping his tiny fingers on daddy’s iPad and, in the process, unwittingly sentenced his family to a year of let’s-pretend-it’s-not-2013.

“That’s kind of when it hit me because I’m like, wow, when I was a kid, I lived outside,” Blair said.

Morgan, who admits she thought her boyfriend was “crazy,” now devours books to pass the time and only uses a computer at work. She swears she has never cheated on the family pact.

“I remember the day before we started this, I was a wreck and I was like ‘I can’t believe I have to delete my Facebook!’” she said.

She has read around 15 books since beginning the challenge in spring.

Stay-at-home dad Blair can’t listen to the latest in house music anymore and is briefly considering writing to his favourite bands for cassette tapes.

He also experienced a form of phantom pain for the first few days after giving up his cellphone.

“The strangest thing without having a cellphone is that I could almost feel my pocket vibrating and I wanted to check my pocket,” he said.

It took weeks for him to shake the feeling that someone was constantly texting or calling him.

Now he’s a “nuisance” to his friends, he said.

“It’s so nice to be able to go out and nobody can get a hold of you,” Blair said.

But what if he absolutely needed to speak with his kids or his wife?

“If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen,” Blair said with a shrug.

The couple even refused to look at photos of their newborn niece on a relative’s iPhone.

Doing so would have violated their rules. They wanted to wait for the real deal: seeing their niece “live and in person.”

Shamefully I found myself checking my personal iPhone and work Blackberry at least three times during our three-hour interview. Blair was kind enough not to confiscate my valuables in a box reserved for tech-carrying visitors.

He challenges people to think of what their evenings would be like without an iPhone or laptop.

“What’s your Saturday going to consist of?” he asked.

During their American roadtrip, he noticed his bored kids would throw tantrums in the car but would actively find ways to entertain themselves once they got to the hotel pool. Meanwhile, other children were absorbed in their parents’ tablets, he said.

“And you’re kind of like ‘Wow, we’re in this beautiful state and nobody’s enjoying it,’” he said.

However, the eccentric lifestyle has taken its toll on Blair’s professional life. He said he lost a business partner because he insisted on working the old-fashioned way.

“I can fax you, that’s the best I can do, but I want to meet you in person, I want to see you, I want to sit down and talk to you,” he said.

He plans on sending out resumes drafted in cursive handwriting, even though many workplaces now only take online job applications.

The financial fall-out isn’t so bad, Blair said.

“It’s way cheaper,” he said. “Everybody just gives me stuff.”

Sometimes they come home to a pile of VHS tapes on the doorstep.

The change has been good for their family’s spirit as well, Morgan said.

“We’re just closer, there’s more talking,” she said.

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In 2011, 79.4% of Canadian households had cellphones

In 2010, 78.9% of all households at Internet access at home

Alberta has the highest proportion of households with cellphones (81%) while Quebec has the lowest (69%)

Over half of 21% of households without Internet access said they had no need for or interest in it.

81% of Ontario residents accessed the Internet from their computers and cellphones in 2010.

Over half of Canadian Internet users (58%) used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in 2010, while 51% indicated they shopped for goods online.

Sources: Statistics Canada