A family’s decision to live like it’s 1986 turned out to be a big modern-day attention grabber.

QMI Agency put the spotlight late last summer on members of a Guelph, Ont., family who have shunned post-1986 electronics and other conveniences.

The story went viral and became the 11th-most read article on torontosun.com.

“The week after you published the story, the phone was literally ringing off the hook,” father Blair McMillan, 26, told QMI Agency.

Newspapers from around the world frantically called his old-fashioned landline for an interview.

Some contacted QMI Agency with the impossible request for an e-mail address to reach the family. Others asked McMillan to e-mail them, obviously forgetting that form of communication did not exist in 1986.

Of those who did reach McMillan, “75% of people would either say ‘look us up on this’ or ‘what’s your e-mail?’ I’d be, like, I only have the phone,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s like they don’t even realize how different it was.”

Agents for reality shows also saw the opportunity in televising the strange experiment.