Cold, Dead Hands

"from my cold, dead hands."

No one is arguing that TVs should be banned, but for too many people giving up the remote (even for one week) could only happen if it was dragged from their “cold, dead hands“.

Here’s a sad story:

How much do white Americans think it costs to be black in our society, given the problems associated with racial bias and prejudice?

The answer, it appears, is not much.

When white Americans were asked to imagine how much they would have to be paid to live the rest of their lives as a black person, most requested relatively low amounts, generally less than $10,000.

In contrast, study participants said they would have to be paid about $1 million to give up television for the rest of their lives.

P.S. Thanks to my hubby for the great photoshopping job!

Sept 09 Turn-off Week

Sept 2009 Turnoff Week

 

Coming right up is this year’s September Turn-off week: Sept 20 – 26

If you would like to make a donation to support this worthy endeavor (or order a kit) please write a check to:

    Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness
    and sent to: PO Box 312
    South Salem, NY 10590

 

Here are a couple of blog post on this upcoming turn-off week:

“Turnoff Week – September 2009″ – Unplug Your Kids

“Turn Off Your TV and Turn On Your Imagination” – Green Parent Chicago

 Also, Screentime is helping to get the word out on the CDC’s new program “Act Early“. 

For extra inspiration see: Turn-off Tips

Post Turn-off Week – May 2009

Playing hopscotch on the beach

Originally uploaded by annulla

Every year when Turn-off Week rolls around, my tvSmarter.com pageviews go way up. This year especially, the pageviews were double and even triple what they normally are. And since most of my pageviews are the result of internet searches, I think this is evidence that Turn-off Week does indeed succeed at increasing awareness of the harmful effects of too much TV (and other screentime).

Congratulation to Screentime and all the participants for another great Turn-off Week !

Congratulation also to Sarah of Unplug-Your Kids for her excellent Turn-off Week Blog Challenge.

Sarah recaps here (with quotes and links to plenty of very entertaining stories):

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/04/27/so-how-did-it-go/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/06/and-the-winner-is-3/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/06/another-non-bloggers-story-jeanna-from-new-zealand/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/03/baking-soda-boats/

http://www.unplugyourkids.com/2009/05/02/a-non-blogger-report/

Regarding Sarah’s turn-off week, she made this encouraging observation:

ENCOURAGING NOTE:  One thing I have observed with my children which might be encouraging to other parents, is that once they get over the first hump of reading fluency, they seem to have much less interest in videos and spend a great deal of their non-play time reading.

This was certainly true with my 8 year-old daughter when she became comfortable with independent reading, but she was never a huge video watcher to begin with.

It was far more remarkable with my 6 year-old son.  He was always the one who would have been Mr. TV had I allowed it.  In the past few months he has suddenly taken off with his reading and is rarely found without a chapter book in his hand.  He honestly seems to have forgotten that the TV ever existed.  My husband and I are absolutely astonished!

 

Turn-Off Week 2009

A Late Post on 2008 TV-Turnoff Week

 

Congratulations to the participants of this year’s TV-Turnoff week !!

 

I had wanted to do a roundup on this year’s TV-Turnoff week, but it looks like Sarah of  Unplug Your Kids beat me to it, and of course did a such great job, I’ll just link:

 

Unplug Your Kids: Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

 

Unplug Your Kids: Impressions of a Week Without TV