OPT OUT


Erin Loechner (2024). The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids                                                                           What Technology Can't


Loechner has an undergraduate degree from Ball State University, and public records don't indicate a field of study, nor any graduate degree. Writing online since 2001, 10 years later she had 1.4 million followers and a 6 figure influencer income...she gave it all up to start "opt out family.com"--this is her story.

Loechner takes the tec principles she used as an online influencer and flips them on their head by applying them to tec free family living...each chapter starts with a succient tech playbook principle turned into an "Our Playbook" principle (e.g., tec ideas of gamification are translated into making everyday face to face life fun)...she quotes LOTS of outside sources, especially books and journals.

A theme running through the book is that technology is not neutral or free...the people behind the tec want your attention (your life--they would like you to spend all your time online to maximzie their profits) and your money...Loechner asserts that we can live a full life without our digital devices, and provides MANY options/practices for this "opt out tec and into life" philosophy (e.g., establish daily rituals with the people you love that don't involve digital tec like: reading together, tea time, sharing a meal, walking in nature...)

Practice: sit down and discuss your values with those you love, devise activities that align with those values, e.g., the value that people are more important than phones could translate to: when someone in my family is within arm's reach, i choose to listen and talk with them instead of engage with someone else who isn't present on the phone.






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