April 19-25 has been designated as 2004’s TV Turnoff Week. 
Last April, hundreds of thousands of children across the 
country participated in TV Free Week. They switched off the tube 
and biked to their libraries, played Monopoly, and talked to 
their parents. What were the results? In the words of Drew 
Henderson, a second grader from Donora, Pennsylvania: "I really 
didn't like TV-Turnoff Week except I did notice that my grades 
went up and I was in a good mood all week."

Our Television Addiction

Most of us would admit, albeit grudgingly, that watching less 
TV would be for the best. Yet the thought of actually taking the 
plunge and limiting, or even eliminating, television makes us 
queasy. According to Neilson Media Research, the average American 
watches four hours of television a day. That adds up to one day per 
week, two months per year, and ten solid years by the time you 
reach 65.

Television has become so pervasive that it’s hard to imagine our 
lives without it. But if you’ve ever had the nagging feeling, as 
you watch your 9-year-old engrossed in an inane sitcom, that 
there must be a better way, take heart. Dr. Barbara Brock recently 
studied a growing movement across the country of families who have
tuned out; either by eliminating TV altogether, or at least by 
watching less than an hour a day. Her study found that you can 
reduce the negative effects of television on your kids, and 
increase family harmony, without precipitating World War III 
in your home. To give you inspiration, here’s what families who 
don’t watch TV are experiencing instead: 

I. TV Free Kids are Healthier in Every Way

The American Academy of Pediatrics says that nothing is more 
correlated with childhood obesity than the amount of television a 
child watches. There are three reasons for this: if you’re watching 
television, you’re not playing ball, throwing the Frisbee, or 
playing tag. You’re also more likely to grab snacks than if you’re 
up and active. Finally, your body actually burns fewer calories 
sitting watching television than sitting in a room staring at a 
blank TV screen. Dr. William Detz of the Center for Disease Control 
concludes that "almost anything uses more energy than watching TV." 

Watching television also jeopardizes our emotional health. I clearly 
remember the Thursday night I decided to switch off the television. 
I was dragging myself to bed, depressed yet again. I realized that 
this depression was a pattern--one that was directly traced to the 
human misery I watched weekly on ER. I started reading instead, and 
my mood, just like that of seven-year-old Drew, improved dramatically.

Finally, children suffer academically when they watch too much TV. 
Jean Healy of Harvard reports that watching TV instead of reading 
actually influences the physical structure of the brain, making it 
harder to succeed in school. And Dr. Brock found that kids who don’t 
watch TV have longer attention spans, fewer cases of ADD, read more 
and--are you ready for this?--usually receive straight A’s.

II. Tv Free Families are Close and harmonious

When kids constantly watch other children engaged in petty squabbles, 
insulting their siblings, and berating their parents, their impressions 
of family life can become seriously distorted. Even worse, they may not 
have time to fix these misconceptions, because television is replacing 
the time children would normally spend with you and with each other. 
The average child spends only 38.5 minutes a week in meaningful 
conversation with his or her parents. Yet in families where the TV has 
been eliminated, children spend over one hour each day communicating 
with their parents.

TV can also undermine sibling relationships. Without TV, children 
need each other for entertainment. With TV, children often squabble 
over which show to watch or separate into their own rooms to watch 
different shows. Dr. Brock’s study found that 70% of families reported 
fewer sibling fights after they eliminated TV. 

III. TV Free Families Have Better Behaved Kids

TV doesn’t just lower grades and cause sibling squabbles, it also 
directly affects bad behavior. The American Academy of Pediatrics says 
that the evidence of the correlation between violence and TV viewing, 
for instance, is incontrovertible. And pediatirican Dr. Thomas Robinson 
found in a 2001 study that TV also produced greedy kids. Those who 
didn’t watch TV made far fewer requests for new toys than kids who did.

I can attest to this by personal experience. Normally, I can walk my 
two daughters through Toys ‘R Us without being subjected to whining and 
pleading and tugging to get a special toy. But after spending a weekend 
watching TV at a friend’s house, that peace evaporated. Now my girls 
wanted all the toys they had seen advertised. 

We don’t need studies to tell us that TV can change our kids, though. 
Think about this: if television didn’t influence behavior, would 
corporations be willing to shell out billions of dollars in advertising 
each year? 

We know the reasons to switch off, and we yearn for the benefits of 
living TV free, but let’s face it: the television habit is hard to 
break. Here are some suggestions to help you tune out:

How to Tune Out

1. Participate in TV Free Week this year. 

2. Relegate the television to an out of way place, such as a dark 
corner in the basement. Take television sets out of all bedrooms 
(yes parents, this means you, too!). 

3. Get rid of your satellite dish or unsubscribe to cable. Take the 
money that you save and use it to do something fun with your family. 

4. Limit the children to a certain number of hours of TV per week, 
and make a television log to plan these. 

5. Make a list of all the things your children like to do for fun, 
and place it somewhere prominent, like on the fridge. Then children 
can choose something to do when they’re bored. 

6. Take your children to the library. 

7. Limit young children to public television, which has no 
commercials and generally higher quality programming. 

8. Consider limiting TV time to videos so that it’s easier to 
control what kids watch. 

9. Turn off the TV during dinner, and designate certain hours 
as "TV Free" when the family does something together.

As parents, we are constantly struggling to carve out more time
in our busy schedules to spend with our families. Yet for most 
of us, several hours per day would be freed up simply by 
switching off the TV. It’s a big leap to make, but let’s 
reclaim the time that television has stolen. Once you’ve started 
living TV free, even if only for a week, you’ll never want to 
go back.

From the April 2004 edition of To Love, Honor and Vacuum newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

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