TV Turnoff Week

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TV Turnoff Week

Submitted by The Original Yoda on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 11:12pm.

Image from rawstory.com

This week is National TV Turnoff Week. The goal is for children and adults to watch less television and turn their attention to a healthier life and community participation.

Adbusters has gone a step further and declared it Mental Detox Week. They challenge us to curtail our use of new media like cellphones, videogames, iPods and...the internet?

Just this month, Sen. Obama advocated turning off the TV and videogames as a parenting technique. I can't even believe that a Presidential candidate is saying that! Here is praise for the idea from an unlikely blogger.

I've been trying to cancel my cable since July. They keep giving me sweet deals to keep me. First it was $25/month for extended basic. I called to cancel again and they sucked me into basic cable for $8/month. Considering that Marcie makes the checks out to Comcrap, I didn't think they'd ever give us such a deal.

Sadly, I know it is really no "deal". This video about subliminal advertising is what made me want to let go of the idiotbox...

UPDATE: Added the paragraph on Obama.

The Original Yoda's blog
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Who is your ISP Yoda?

Submitted by Norm on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 11:52pm.

I keep wanting to drop comcast, but they keep offering me the same type of deals, particularly because I use their internet service as well. I'm afraid if I cancel cable tv, that they will hike up my internet rates.

I'm on Earthlink...

Submitted by The Original Yoda on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 11:57am.

...but I plan to check out Zhonka, next. I remember Uncle Dave's "OlyWA" at the same location. Back in the day, I used to be a half block away and my friends were amazed when I could actually connect at 56k.

You Commie Bastards

Submitted by Laurian on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 5:39am.

Turn off my TV!?! How dare you! I'll turn off my TV only after you pry the remote out from under my Ginormous Ass.

I Second Laurian!

Submitted by JstPlnOnry on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:02pm.

No way am I going to miss all my reality show finales and movies on pay per view!

"A point of view is only a view from a point..." ~ Unknown

With the exception of

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:05pm.

With the exception of Olyblog I'm not a big fan of Reality Tv (except some people think the Forensics and Detective shows I watch on A&E and Tru are Reality Shows.

Okay, I suppose Judge Judy was Reality, but Jerry Springer back in the day was stretching it...I hope.

Springer ~ Stretching It or Stooping?!

Submitted by JstPlnOnry on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:10pm.

I love the detective shows on A&E like First 48's (the ones in Kansas City show a guy I went all through high school with! Who knew he'd become a cop!? He was voted most likely to die partying!), Crime 360, Miami CSI, Intervention... My DVR is on it's last leg from me taping them all!

I'm totally into Big Brother 9, Glamoricious, America's Next Top Model, American Idol, Survivor, ER, Gray's Anatomy, My Name's Earl, Wife Swap... You know, all the good stuff! LOL!

"A point of view is only a view from a point..." ~ Unknown

but Jerry Springer back in

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Sat, 04/26/2008 - 1:03pm.

but Jerry Springer back in the day was stretching it...I hope.

Springer "back in the way" was one of those phenomenon that you'll never be able to convey to younger generations.

It was definitely a "You had to be alive to understand"-type deals.

But everyone was watching it.

$25 a month for Extended

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 8:09am.

$25 a month for Extended Basic? How do I get in on that racket?

I could turn the tv off - in fact, I watch way so much less than I used to - but they have episodes of Who's The Boss on On Demand right now.

I'll just keep telling myself that my increasing Jabba the Hutt figure is the result of being a Secretary.

But then again - if I shut the tube off more often, I'd have more time to post on Olyblog...

You have to be ready to give up cable...

Submitted by The Original Yoda on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:09pm.

...I told them it was too expensive (we were originally paying $50/mo). I said I wanted to cancel. They offered $39/mo. I asked if they could go lower and the person put me on hold to ask. She came back and said we can do $25/mo. for six months. When it went back up after six months, we called again to cancel and they offered us basic cable for $8/mo.

They're Struggling To Compete With Satellite

Submitted by JstPlnOnry on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:13pm.

I know some higher ups with Comcast. So many people are switching to Satellite TV Comcast is really having a hard time competing with them. That's one of the reasons their rates keep going up but the services keep going down. The only thing keeping their heads above water right now is the Internet.

"A point of view is only a view from a point..." ~ Unknown

I think it would be harder

Submitted by eelcozy on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:14pm.

I think it would be harder for me to WATCH TV for a whole week. Take my computer on the other hand...

By the way...

Submitted by The Original Yoda on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:40pm.

...we just watched "Network" this weekend. It's the film responsible for people saying "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

This film is absolutely great!

From wikipedia:

Network is a 1976 satirical New Hollywood film about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System (UBS), and its struggle with poor ratings. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, and stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
Network has continued to receive recognition, decades after its initial release. In 2000, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2002, the film was inducted into the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame as a film that has "set an enduring standard for American entertainment."^[1] In 2006, Chayefsky's script was voted one of the top ten movie scripts of all-time by the Writers Guild of America. In 2007, the film was 64th among the Top 100 Greatest American Films as chosen by the American Film Institute, a ranking slightly higher than the one AFI gave it ten years earlier.

One of the most terrifying movies ever made

Submitted by Laurian on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 4:40pm.

Along with Dr. Strangelove and Brazil, Network gets more relevant with each passing year. Every person who watches TV should see this film at least once.

Turn off the TV: PERIOD.

Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:44pm.

I believe that Television of one of the most anti-social and socially destructive aspects of our present day society.

If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend this title by Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. (Mander also published a title called Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.)

link to book on Amazon.com

Of course, Internet may be guilty of some of the same negative attributes as television is. But in the opinion of this humble critic, television is much worse!

We dropped cable about 6 years ago

Submitted by JulieM on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 1:05pm.

but we still watch movies on DVD. Turning off for the TV for a week shouldn't be hard, but not using the internet would be a challenge.

One thing I found when we stopped watching cable/network TV is that I felt safer in my day-to-day life. I think TV news promotes fear. Wasn't there some study that showed that the depiction of violence and crime on TV news increased over the last few decades when the rate of crime stayed about the same?

I Think Violent Video Games

Submitted by JstPlnOnry on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 1:14pm.

cause more damage than TV.

I also don't think TV News causes fear. How could the rate of violence and crime on TV news increase if the rate of crime stayed the same? Isn't that saying despite there being no crime, TV news has ficticiously created things that aren't happening.

"A point of view is only a view from a point..." ~ Unknown

I think it's about what they are choosing to show on the news

Submitted by JulieM on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 2:46pm.

not that they are creating things that didn't happen. I did a quick search on Google for 'media portrayal of crime and crime statistics' and there were quite a few journal articles that support the idea that news programs highlight and include crime and violence stories than they did say, 20 years ago.

Like I said, I don't watch network or cable news at all, so I don't know what a news program is showing these days. When I was watching though, I remember crime stories from out of the area often being shown on my local news station. My mom watches all the news shows and I think she has a whacked perception crime and her chances of being a victim.

I agree completely Julie.

Submitted by Rob Richards on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 1:27pm.

"If it bleeds, it leads" is a common term in the news biz for a reason. Sensationalism sells. People are more likely to buy a paper or tune in to the news if there's a catastrophe or other violent things presented than if it's good news. Imagine relying on either FoxNews or MSNBC for all of your news. You'd be out of your mind with fear. People do rely on them, and that's scarier than any of the negative crap they spew.

No Cable For Me...

Submitted by Chia on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 1:58pm.

I don't subscribe to cable and use videos instead. I do miss the morning news shows because they were about information as well as news and morning news tended to be a bit less fear inspiring as I remember it but generally agree that I'm better off without cable on a regular basis. I'd like to be able to see shows like Meerkat Manor on the Internet, though.

Don't eat meat, ride a bike...that's how you can brake global warming, the head of the United Nation's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change said...

I gave up TV over 7 years ago

Submitted by jlw on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 3:24pm.

And I've never once regretted the decision.

GASP!

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 3:28pm.

How can you go through life without knowing who America's Top Model is? If it weren't for the Nightly News being All Britney All The Time I would just die.

(I hope to God people realize I'm being sarcastic as Hell.)

I do miss some "cultural" references sometimes

Submitted by jlw on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 3:34pm.

But I still know who Sanjaya is.

Starting around early 1996 I

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 3:36pm.

Starting around early 1996 I wasn't watching much Network TV anymore which becomes apparent whenever Jeopardy or Le Voyeur Trivia Night has a King of Queens or All About Jim category.

Man...

Submitted by a.future.with.n... on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 5:10pm.

I havn't had a TV connected to the cable in like, 6 years. I download Lost off the internet though. If theres no commercials does it still count as TV?

I stopped

Submitted by crashnostar on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 10:15pm.

having cable when I started as a student out at Evergreen. I was so busy I didn't have time to watch television, and it's been four years and I still don't have T.V. I just watch DVD's on my computer or go to the theater. I have watched a couple of shows through the internet though. I'm glad I made the decision not to have cable. I save money and I have more time for other things since I'm not spending hours a day watching this show or that show. I also agree with what was said earlier about feeling safer because your least likely to be exposed to the fear hungry media. Yeah, sometimes I don't know about this or that, but if it's really important I usually will see it somewhere i.e. internet, paper.

Sorry dude, Lost is on this

Submitted by Domenica the Mouse on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 6:53pm.

Sorry dude, Lost is on this week! Also, I don't appreciate the fatphobic comments in this thread. Thank you.

My gut is growing, I'm more

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 8:02am.

My gut is growing, I'm more and more in an acceptable spot where I can take pot(belly)shots at Secretary Spread (another affliction I'm being blessed with.)

When remotes are outlawed

Submitted by stevenl on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 10:50pm.

only outlaws will have remotes.

We just better hope they don't outlaw outlaws.

Submitted by Rob Richards on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 11:39pm.

Don't even own one....

Submitted by security_six on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 11:40pm.

Had one about a year ago to hook a video game terminal to, but I gave up on that even. Partly a space thing though. If I had a small LCD TV, I would use that. But a CRT one on the boat? Nope.

I really don't miss them either. I can watch DVD's on my laptop if I want to see a movie...

"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.-- Shane

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Submitted by The Original Yoda on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 9:55am.

Thank you so much.

Submitted by Rob Richards on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 12:24pm.

I hadn't watched this in a while.

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