Best Sites for Information about TV's effects:

Whitedot. The International Campaign Against Television. Another supporter of the TV Turnoff Week.

Kill Your Television! Has a bit of a negative tone, but still an excellent source of information.

Center for Screen Time Awareness, formerly the TV Turnoff Network. This group founded the TV Turnoff Week. An excellent source of information and inspiration. Also has resources for schools.

LimiTV. Another good site for resources and also alternatives to TV.

Instead of TV. Site focuses on the many alternatives to TV.

Adbusters. Good site for information, but with a bit of a political slant. Sponsored the "Buy Nothing Day".

TV Smarter Site examines the question: Does TV make you smarter? Has a good overview of the many negative effects of television.

Examining The Negative Effects of Excessive Television A project of the Standford Prevention Research Center. Stanford University School of Medicine. Includes "Student Media Awareness to Reduce Television" (S.M.A.R.T), a 3rd-4th Grade Curriculum and CD-Rom for classrooms to help students reduce television.

Books:

A-Z to TV-Free by Katherine Westphal --A-Z to TV-Free gently encourages young children (ages 2-8) to turn off the TV set and rediscover the wonderful world around them. Using the alphabet as a guide, children retrain their imaginations and discover the fun adventures that await when they turn off the TV, from catching butterflies to splashing in puddles.

The TV-FREE System by Katherine Westphal. Answers the question: What can I do to get in control of my TV addiction?

The Plug-In Drug by Marie Winn. "In The Plug-In Drug, Marie Winn demonstrates "with devastating persuasiveness" (The Washington Post) that television has a negative impact on child development, school achievement, and family life. But rather than focusing on program improvement as a solution, Winn proposes that the problem lies within the seductive act of TV watching itself. Extensive TV watching alters children's relations with the real world, depriving them of far more valuable real life experiences, especially playing and reading."

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander. "A total departure from previous writing about television, this book is the first ever to advocate that the medium is not reformable. Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to democratic processes -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever."

Glued to the Tube: The Threat of Television Addiction to Today's Family by Cheryl Pawlowski. "With a barrage of statistics that buttress her view of the decline of family interaction, Pawlowski relentlessly decries TV as a powerful purveyor of negative cultural and racial stereotypes, one that steals important roles (mentor, hero, friend) away from parents and thus undermines their ability to shape their children's values. Pawlowski is at her best when acerbically detailing exactly what television's ever-shuffling roster of sitcoms and advertisements teaches viewers about gender, family and sexuality. Her final chapter offers practical advice on how to kick the TV habit" -Publishers Weekly Review

The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Robert W. McChesney. "The symptoms of the crisis of the U.S. media are well-known—a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. McChesney's new book, The Problem of the Media, gets to the roots of this crisis, explains it, and points a way forward for the growing media reform movement."

Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say by Douglas Rushkoff. "Marketing continues to grow more aggressive, and Rushkoff tracks the increasingly coercive techniques it employs to ingrain its message in the minds of consumers, as well as the results: toddlers can recognize the golden arches of McDonald's, young rebels get tattooed with the Nike swoosh, and news stories are increasingly taken verbatim from company press releases. "Corporations and consumers are in a coercive arms race," argues Rushkoff. "Every effort we make to regain authority over our actions is met by an even greater effort to usurp it."" -Amazon review

We Know What You Want : How They Change Your Mind by Douglas Rushkoff and Martin Howard. "In this handbook for locating the hidden sales messages that bombard us everyday, Martin Howard explains the new techniques that corporations are using to make subconscious approaches without your consent. It covers the five major zones where consumers are being confronted: in the retail shopping context, at major events and concerts, through information media, personal friendships, and your computer."

Get a Life!: The Little Red Book of the White Dot by David Burke

Spy TV by David Burke

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. "From the author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity comes a sustained, withering and thought-provoking attack on television and what it is doing to us. Postman's theme is the decline of the printed word and the ascendancy of the "tube" with its tendency to present everything murder, mayhem, politics, weather as entertainment. The ultimate effect, as Postman sees it, is the shrivelling of public discourse as TV degrades our conception of what constitutes news, political debate, art, even religious thought."-Publishers Weekly Review

The New Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. "When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist." Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies has dwindled from fifty to ten to five."

Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam. "The conclusions reached in the book Bowling Alone rest on a mountain of data gathered by Putnam and a team of researchers.... Its breadth of information is astounding--yes, he really has statistics showing people are less likely to take Sunday picnics nowadays. Dozens of charts and graphs track everything from trends in PTA participation to the number of times Americans say they give "the finger" to other drivers each year."

Important Articles:

T.V. Numbs Brain

What They Don't Want You To Know About Television and Videos. by Lawrence Kelemen

Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor by Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Impact of Television: A Natural Experiment in Three Communities by Tannis McBeth Williams

Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children by Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH
; Frederick J. Zimmerman, PhD; David L. DiGiuseppe, MS; and Carolyn A. McCarty, PhD

The Strange Disappearance of Civic America by Robert D. Putnam

The Way We Eat Now: Ancient bodies collide with modern technology to produce a flabby, disease-ridden populace by Craig Lambert

Electronic Heroin

Television: Opiate of the Masses by Wes Moore

Journal Articles:

Jago R, Baranowski T, Baranowski JC, Thompson D, Greaves KA. "BMI from 3-6 y of age is predicted by TV viewing and physical activity, not diet." Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2005 Jun;29(6):557-64.

Ross E. Andersen, PhD; Carlos J. Crespo, DrPH, MS; Susan J. Bartlett, PhD; Lawrence J. Cheskin, MD; Michael Pratt, MD, MPH. "Relationship of Physical Activity and Television Watching With Body Weight and Level of Fatness Among Children." JAMA. 1998;279:938-942.

Frank B. Hu; Tricia Y. Li; Graham A. Colditz; Walter C. Willett; JoAnn E. Manson Television Watching and Other Sedentary Behaviors in Relation to Risk of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Women JAMA, Apr 2003; 289: 1785 - 1791.

Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH “Does Television Cause Childhood Obesity?” JAMA. 1998; 279: 959-960.

Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH “Reducing Children's Television Viewing to Prevent Obesity: A Randomized Controlled Trial” JAMA, Oct 1999; 282: 1561 - 1567.

LA Tucker and M Bagwell. “Television viewing and obesity in adult females.” Am J Public Health, Jul 1991; 81: 908 - 911.

LA Tucker and GM Friedman “Television viewing and obesity in adult males” Am J Public Health, Apr 1989; 79: 516 - 518.

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