National TV Turn Off Week

beforewisdom writes "Next week (April 19th - 25th 2004) is National TV Turn Off Week in the USA. Among the many benefits claimed by tvturnoff.org is that 90% of the people who participate in a TV Turnoff Week successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently."

Food For Thought

[(54)T-Dub]

I understand that there are Lies, Dirty Lies and then there are statistics but some of these [tvturnoff.org] [PDF] give pause.

• Amount of television that the average American watches per day: over 4 hours
• Time per day that TV is on in an average US home: 7 hours, 40 minutes
• Number of videos rented daily in the US: 6 million
• Number of videos rented daily in the US: 6 million
• Average time per week that the American child ages 2-17 spends watching television: 19 hours, 40 minutes
• Time per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5 minutes
• Number of murders witnessed by children on television by the age 18: 16,000
• Number of murders witnessed by children on television by the age 18: 16,000
• Percent reduction in the American homicide rate between 1993 and 1996: 20
• Percent increase in number of violent scenes per hour on 10 major channels from 1992 to 1994: 41

But I still believe that it's gay mariage that is endangering families the most.

NHL Playoffs

[WolF-g]

They picked a lousy week to try to go without TV. It's the playoffs.

I don't watch TV other than that anyway....

Re:Nice, but I feel like it's hopeless...

[crow]

One reason that I don't watch television is because of all the awful advertising. It seems like for every three minutes of programming there are two minutes of commercials.

I stopped watching commercials several years ago when we got our ReplayTV. Now on those rare occasions when live TV is on, the ads are rather startling. I also find that ads on the radio feel more intrusive now that I don't put up with them on TV.

Re:Question

[jmpoast]

According to the site:

TV-Turnoff Network is a national nonprofit organization that encourages children and adults to watch much less television in order to promote healthier lives and communities.

No where on there do I see where it says anything about sticking it to the man. Its not about damning corporations, its about improving health and communication.

Allthough for most people turning off the tv just means more time on the computer, so it may not have the exact effect they want on everyone.

What about Stanley Cup Hockey!?!?

[deviantonline]

I cant turn it off this week because there is too much hockey to watch! Maybe Im just a hoser, but Hockey Night In Canada is just too important to me!

This is well timed...

[SataiCam]

...since it's also National Library Week [ala.org].

Re:Nice, but I feel like it's hopeless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's pretty close. A show is 22 minutes long, which leaves 8 minutes for ads. That's 2.75 minutes of TV per minute of advertising. Subtract the repetitive intro, a few minutes of credits (which networks manage to sqeeze next to a large ad), and the fact that the show probably sucks anyway, and you have some quality advertising there.

Self-Reply to add....

[GrnArmadillo]

Site's apparantly just slow rather than dead, and the truth is worse than the Slashdot blurb makes it look. The quote (bolding mine):

"TV-Turnoff Week Works!
According to hundreds of responses to our TV-Turnoff Week follow-up surveys, 90 percent of responding participants reduced their TV-viewing as a result of participating."

Who's going to go to the bother of responding to the survey to say how the whole exercise was a waste of their time? This isn't even an attempt at a scientific poll and should have been reviewed with more scrutiny by the editors.

Re:Why so desparate to have TV?

[swillden]

The entertainment industry is one of the biggest industries in the US (if not the biggest)

Are you sure about that? Compare it to the computer industry. The top US entertainment companies for 2003 made:

• Vivendi Universal: $61B
• Time Warner: $40B
• Walt Disney: $27B
• Viacom: $27B
• Comcast: $18B
• News Corp: $17B

Total $163B. In comparison, look at the top computer companies:

• IBM: $89B
• HP: $73B
• Dell: $41B
• Microsoft: $32B
• EDS: $22B
• Sun: $11B

Total $268B, in an industry that has many more small players, so the total industry revenues would be even further apart.

And even that's nothing compared to a really big industry, like the automotive industry. Ford and GM *each* made more money than the entire entertainment industry. And the oil industry makes the auto industry look small.

The entertainment industry is big, but it's not nearly as big as people think it is. It has influence that is all out of proportion with its real scale.

Re:Nice, but I feel like it's hopeless...

[uvasmith]

Temperance is something geeks end up having to learn in order to work with the rest of society.

Temperance refers to avoiding excess and is often used with respect to drinking and other vices, though is not limited to them. I think you meant tolerance.

Re:Nice, but I feel like it's hopeless...

[SurgeonGeneral]

By the by, that quote is from "Psychology : The Science of Behavior" by Niel Carlson et. al. which I just so happened to have beside me because of my psych exam this morning.

Re:Why so desparate to have TV?

[Cecil]

The story told on my favorite sitcom this week could have been a short story.

I think he meant reading something insightful, to cause you to do scary things like think about all kinds of stuff from politics up to and including the meaning of life. Most good books fall into this category. He certainly didn't mean reading a trashy supermarket romance novel.

There really is no available comparison. The most thought-provoking thing I've ever seen on the aptly-named boob tube was "The Matrix". How sad is that?

Mindless entertainment is great, don't get me wrong. I play video games all the time. You're welcome to watch TV instead if you like. Intellectually they're about the same. But you need to balance it out with something more challenging. It's nice to give the mind a rest now and then. But just like resting a bit is nice, despite the benefits of exercise, it's also good to give your mind some exercise. Read a good, intelligent book (sci-fi, fiction, non-fiction, doesn't matter), or really anything except TV. Build something, draw something, do something. All these things are much more rewarding than sitting and passively watching TV.

I realize I sound like this guy [theonion.com] but honestly, when I started to cut down my TV-watching, it not only gave me time to start cycling a lot more and getting my body in shape, reading because I enjoy it, and it gave me much more time for my hobbies like photography and programming as well.

TVs give outlets for advertisements, thus furthering our economy.

I am not an economist, but our economy is furthered by the creation of wealth -- technological advancements, increased industrial production, etc. Advertising creates no wealth, it does not advance society or the economy. It is a tool for encouraging voluntary redistribution of existing wealth, a byproduct of capitalism, not a contribution to the economy.

Re:Nice, but I feel like it's hopeless...

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be quoted in that book, but it's originally from from Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530).

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mcsurley/weeklyquotes.htm l

Re:Here's what you'll miss during that week..

[Mikeydude750]

At least you can more effectively deal with it(using Mozilla...haven't seen a popup in almost a year now