TV turnoff
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Logo TV turnoff
The TV turnoff network is an organization that tries to encourage children and adults to watch less television and thus have more time for a healthier life and more community participation. It is a grassroots organisation in which many organisations participate.
TV turnoff week
TV-Turnoff Week happens the last full week of April. In 2005, it was scheduled for April 25 through May 1. It has been sponsored in the US by the TV-Turnoff Network since 1994. Up to now over 24 million have participated. The organization estimates that 7.6 million people participated in 2004.
A related organization, Asesores TV La Familia Internacional works in many countries with large Spanish-speaking populations.
Over 70 other organizations support the movement in the US, such as the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the YMCA. (A complete list is available on the TV-Turnoff Network site.) In 2004, a major partnership was created with the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Books that inspired this week are The Plug-in Drug by Marie Winn (1977) and Neil Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood (1982). A more recent book is Glued to the Tube (2002).
The twenty-something culture-jamming crowd might visit the edgy AdBusters in Canada, White Dot in the UK (named after the small white dot that would briefly appear when turning off older TV sets, especially black-and-white ones).
Anti-TV "guerrillas" use a small device known as TV-B-Gone to remotely turn off television sets within a 14-meter perimeter in an attempt to reduce "ambient TV" in public space.
External links
- TV turnoff network (http://www.tvturnoff.org/)
- Organisations that support the TV turnoff week (http://www.tvturnoff.org/2004supporterlst.htm)
- TV Turnoff Dallas - A local city-wide organization in Texas (http://www.tvturnoffdallas.org/)
- White Dot site (http://www.whitedot.org/)nl:TV turnoff