TV Turnoff Week: April 25 - May 1, 2005
 

Take the opportunity to reclaim a few of those hours stolen from you by the time vampire in your living room!

Turn your TV off for one week and return to the not so distant past when neighbours played cards, children had hobbies, people read books and nobody would consider getting a Nike swoosh tattoo. Escape the gaze of that fuzzbox and show those advertisers that you're not actually a captive audience!

I stopped watching television close to 7 years ago now and believe it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I live in a world of minimal commercialism, more reality then Reality TV, and have friends, not Friends.

I'm not saying that everyone should follow my example, I am simply issuing a challenge for a short term experiment. What have you got to lose?

Tim

:eek: I'll turn off the TV when they pry the remote from my dead cold hand :mrgreen:

Steve

I watch maybe about an hour of it a month and even then it's fairly boring and excruciating...but my gf likes "cuddling on the couch".

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On this board I think most of us spend more time with our tanks, and computers. So IMO not much of a challange.


Robert

Well i spent too much money now on my entertianment system and stop watching tv would be impossible. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Does watching TV shows on your computer count as watching TV? :mrgreen:

well if your turning off the TV you should turn of the computer as well. But neither will happen to me, i enjoy my TV. I do watch quite a bit but i dont think it takes away from anything else i could be doing. I guess though a little more activity would be good for some people, since canada is one of the fattest countries in the world.

I dont watch much tv. Only during dinner and then breakfast on weekends.

Nike tattoo....hmmmm

Less TV would mean more computer time. As if I need that....at least we watch favorite shows together, ( the good ones like american idol, fear factor, survivor, etc) and private tv time as required.....(golf, mxc, :rolleyes: ) supernanny and extreme makeover :cool:

I stayed up watching the Pope's inaug last nite. TV ROCKS !!! :mrgreen:

I spend most of my time on the computer rather than TV. We do watch construction shows before bed, such as Holmes on Homes, In a Fix, Real Renos, Frontiers of Construction. etc etc. Neither of us really like the 'reality TV' shows. Although some of the construction shows are starting to get a bit outa hand....

As many Canreefers can probably guess, I surf many times more than I watch tv. Only show I watch with regularity is Survivor.

Watching tv is cheaper :redface: Surfing is an expensive way for me to spend my time.

Anthony

Oh, no :eek: We can't stop watching our favourite tv shows, even though we don't actually watch them when they are broadcast. Rather, we tape what we like, then watch the shows at our convenience the next evening. Can speed through the commercials that way :biggrin: An hour of TV minus the intro, commercials and closing credits really amounts to about 45 minutes of actual tv watching time.

And we've just got to see if the weird people who think they are vampires and who are after Emily on Third Watch actually get caught before they harm her :eek: Does the disgruntled, angry and drunk Bosco save the day, or does Faith make it home in time???!??

We haven't watched TV during the week for a long time. Me and the wife catch up with all the shows we missed during the week on the weekend. The only downside is if we happens to hear at work or where ever what happened in one of the shows we haven't watched yet... :confused:

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Agreed, and I figured as much. The people on this forum aren't really the type to spend 6 to 8 hours in front of the tube every day, but they are out there. However, this is a global challenge and if this post helps to foster discussion between you and any of your TV addicted friends and family then I feel I am helping the cause.

TV Turnoff Week was great during the years I spent working in an office. The Reality Show Queen sat beside me and her cubicle would be the gathering place every morning for a round of "Can you believe she said that!", or, "I think he's cute!", and, "I wish I was there, I'd give them a piece of my mind!". Drove me nuts. Turnoff week allowed me to point out how much of their evenings were spent sitting and watching and the amount of their day occupied by talking about sitting and watching. Also gave me the opportunity to pull up fun stats like:

- virtually all 3500 research studies over 40 years show a link between watching media violence and committing acts of real violence

- Americans watch an average of more than 4 hours of TV a day, or 2 full months of TV a year

- Percentage of Hollywood executives who believe there is a link between TV violence and real violence: 80

- Percent increase in network news coverage of homicide between 1993 and 1996: 721

- Percent reduction in the American homicide rate betwen 1993 and 1996: 20

- Percentage of toy advertising dollars spent on television commercials in 1997: 92

- Percentage of American children age 6 and under who have products based on characters from TV shows or movies: 97

more here http://www.tvturnoff.org/images/fact.../FactsFigs.pdf




Thanks for listening folks,
Tim

Stats can be used to prove anything :razz:

92% of people know that :lol: :rolleyes:

if i turned my tv off how would i watch deadwood :eek:

Gee, most of us seem to be poo-pooing Tim's wonderful idea. It would be great to not watch tv for a week, or at least for less time than we do. Tonight we'll only watch an hour, last night it was two hours, well, minus all the commercials, of course :cool:

IMO, tv fulfills some very important human needs for many people, including myself. Husband's immediate family are all dead, my family is not close. We communicate with others at work and in our community, but there is still something wonderful about tv. We choose what comes into our homes if we use tv wisely and for our personal needs. There are storie lines and characters on particular tv shows that we identify with and can thereby learn more about ourselves and the world around us if that is our goal. And we can discuss with others with similar tv interests what we have learned. Or, we can jsut gossip about stuff. What the heck, everyone is different.

TV is almost like sitting around the primordial fire after a big hunt where the mundane or the supremely important issues are shared, if we choose our tv wisely.

But we do not always have to choose wisely. There is nothing wrong in our ever increasing fast paced world to just sit in front of the tube and veg for awhile, no matter what inane thing may be on.

Anyway, Tim, it's good you brought up the subject. If we weren't all defending our choices to watch tv, we might actually find some food for thought in your post.

Thanks Bev, but remember, I never requested anybody give up TV for good. I only suggested going a week without it. The event is intended to show how different your life may be without this one piece of technology that has become ingrained into our society so quickly. It's a chance for people to talk about their views of the TV generation and for families to reconnect with each other, perhaps around an actual fire.

I'm actually impressed with the scarcity of hard-core TV junkies present, unless they simply aren't responding, or you all lie!

One week, seven short days, you can do it!

I know I can do it. :razz: I just want to catch up on some of my shows though!

But I promise you, when the weather is nice, I'm outside.

I'm probably not typical. There are some shows I like to follow. But there are others where I'm like .. yeah this is good but I don't have the time.

I can only sit and watch TV for a couple hours tops. I remember as teenager we'd rent like 2, 3, sometimes 4 movies and just binge on them. There's no way I can sit through 2 movies anymore. Lord of the Rings .. fabulous movies and I'm a total sci fi / fantasy geek so there was no way I wasn't going to LOVE these movies but frankly now that they're out on DVD it's AWESOME, I can watch one of them in 2 or 3 sittings rather than all laid out at once.

I can quit drinking coffee too. I just don't want to :razz:

OK, TV is fine, but let's not push this over the edge with coffee, k? :razz:

I would kill for a chance to relax and watch something fun for a couple of hours... or at least without being distracted by all the things I should be doing while I watch TV. :confused:

Not actually kill, of course - just an expression. As in:

Wait, does xbox count as TV watching?

So, how did everybody do?

Umm, for the record, I NEVER mentioned a Canreef Turnoff Week, that's just crazy!

Just out of curiosity, which would you rather give up for another week, the Canreef forum or the television?

Ohh, we thought you wanted Canreef off too. We wouldn't have turned it off for teh week if we knew you didn't mean Canreef. Silly us!! :razz:

I did terriblly. There was nothing on the internet to distract me (ie. canreef). On the upside, I think I read about 7 books :razz:

Neither :eek: Glad Canreef is back :biggrin:

I still watched TV at home, but I did manage to cut back on how much time I spend watching DVD movies while driving. :redface:

like we changed at all :mrgreen: I even watched more tv to make up for the fools that actualy turned theres off.

and for the record I would rather lose the internet than tv any day.

Steve

Well, I guess you showed me! :rolleyes: