Just say no to television
Week helps students balance TV usage
by
Jennifer Krahe
It
is “a vast wasteland,” Newton Minow, then the Director of
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said in 1961.
His comment would forever mark the height of American society’s
strange love/hate relationship with one of its endemic cultural
institutions: television.
Taylor
Wright, a student at Gavilan Peak Elementary doesn’t think
“vast wasteland,” she thinks “SpongeBob.” Is that so bad?
April
24‑30 was marked off on calendars across the country
as “Turn off the TV Week.” During these seven days, the American
public, from its oldest to its youngest members, was encouraged
to engage in activities other than watching television.
Karen
Lewis, Program Director of the TV‑Turnoff Network, based
in Washington, D.C., explained Thursday, “the network isn’t
out to demonize television. It’s not necessarily a bad thing,
it’s a matter of balance.
“We’ve
been doing this for 12 years and we do it to give people a
week‑long break from TV so they can see what life is
like when you do more and watch less.”
She
reported that after the week is over, people watch much less
and they are much more deliberate about what they watch.
“In
a typical household, TV is on eight hours a day,” said Lewis.
She explained that by dividing
the day into thirds: eight hours with the TV on, eight hours
for school/work, and eight hours for sleeping, “It’s on every
waking moment.”
Kyle
Scheuring, a third grader at Gavilan Peak Elementary, admitted
that “it’s hard to stop” watching TV.
Emily
Jensen, a fourth grader at Gavilan Peak Elementary is an avid
reader. She turned off the TV and read a bunch of books.
“Enthusiasm
for Turn Off the TV Week was whipped up in the early ‘60s
when a lot of attention was given to the banality of materials
that were on TV and the triviality of presentations,” commented
Craig Allen, Arizona State University Associate Professor
and Coordinator of Broadcast News.
“‘The
Beverly Hillbillies’and ‘Gilligan’s Island’got top ratings
but had no redeeming value,” Allen said.
For
Dominic Scheuring, 13, “The Office” and “My Name is Earl,”
deserve top ratings. For him, “Gilligan’s Island” has been
replaced by “Survivor,” and the similarities are uncanny.
“Coming
out of that period in the ‘60s, there was a lot of sentiment
that television contributed nothing to the well‑being
of society,” Allen explained. However, he mentioned, the vehement
disgust for television has subsided a bit, and more Americans
understand that “TV effectively serves a mass audience. It’s
not a complete picture of doom and gloom.”
“We’re
not saying ‘kill your television,’we don’t give it that much
power,” Lewis said. “It’s an appliance; get it out when you
want to use it put it away when you don’t.”
