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Unplug Your Kids Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood
Huffington Post posted a promotional video called A “24″ Christmas: Jack Bauer Tortures Santa Claus.
In it, Santa Claus has been apprehended by the CIA, and Jack Bauer is sent in to torture and interrogate him. Of course, almost everyone is going to click on the video to see if Jack Bauer really does torture Santa Claus.
There have been plenty of scientific studies showing associations between Television and academic mediocrity, depression, aggression, poor concentration, obesity, consumerism, civic disengagement, etc.
You would almost think that TV might be bad for you!
For lovers and defenders of TV, how to fight back? Luckily for them, two economists have come to the rescue, providing a statistical study showing that TV really is good for kids.
It turns out the new flat-screen TVs use significantly more energy than the old-style TVs.
Here’s one excellent solution:
The obvious solution to the problem of energy-guzzling TV sets (“TV sets may get greener,” Oct. 22) is simply banishing them from our homes.
TVs are not required for life. My household has been TV-free for many years now, and yet I manage to live a full, active life and stay engaged with the issues as an educator and citizen.
Doing away with TV also immediately eliminates so many of the corporate messages telling us we are inadequate if we are not buying more and more things.
There are so many other wonderful things to do instead of watching TV and shopping. Yes, there is good content on some networks, but there is good content out in the non-virtual world as well.
Killing our TVs could help save energy for things more essential to life.
RUTH E. MALONE Oakland
Originally uploaded by yes, spaz.
Lately my anti-TV blogroll has increased substantially.
For some fun reading on TV, anti-TV and Instead of TV check out these new blogs:
Regarding screens in public places, there is a whole website devoted to the subject.
Check out: Media by Choice
For me “screens in public places” was not such a big issue, perhaps because where I live, blaring screens everywhere is not such a problem. But reading the excellent Media by Choice gave me a new perspective. I especially liked the description of the Ray Bradbury story in the Welcome page.
Congratulations to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) !
Note: for a list of studies looking at the effects of TV on very young children see: http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/young.html
CCFC successfully pressured “the Walt Disney Company to offer a full refund to anyone who purchased a Baby Einstein DVD in the last five years.”
This is in addition to their ”2006 Federal Trade Commission complaint” which forced Disney to stop making false claims that Baby Einstein DVDs were educational.
From The New York Times article on the Baby Einstein Refunds:
Last year, lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive practices unless Disney agreed to refund the full purchase price to all who bought the videos since 2004. “The Walt Disney Company’s entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development,” a letter from the lawyers said, calling those claims “false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children.”
Perhaps “Baby Einstein” should be renamed “Baby Bozo” !
But it was the comments that were the most fun, here are a few that I especially liked:
