Ten fun and productive things to do during TV Turnoff Week

Welcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed . Thanks for visiting!

This week is TV Turnoff Week, the wonderful initiative started by Adbusters and the Center for Screen-Time Awareness to encourage us to turn off the idiot box. I stopped watching TV when I moved out of my parents’ house almost two years ago. I haven’t missed it. Yes, I have a screen for movies and watch occasionally, but otherwise I find things to do like exercise, read, and further my knowledge via the Internet. My only regular TV exposure right now is when I’m in the gym; there I enjoy watching the History Channel.

I encourage you this week to turn off your TV and discover activities that refresh you. Here are ten things you can do this week instead of watch TV:

  1. Read a Book - The one you’ve been putting off reading. Or, you can read about the media, books such as Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman or Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg.
  2. Pick up a new skill or enroll in a class. Right now I’m reading Rod Machado’s Private Pilot Handbook and studying up on my knowledge before beginning lessons.
  3. Two words: Spring Cleaning!
  4. Go for a walk/jog/bike ride outside.
  5. Attend a cultural event, concert, or visit an art gallery if you’re into that sort of thing (then again, if you are, how much TV do you really watch?)
  6. Go throw a ball or play a game with some friends - it’s about that time of year!
  7. Cook a meal and eat it together as a family. If you aren’t married or don’t have kids, invite some friends over and cook a meal together.
  8. Play a board game or party game. Recently I had fun playing classics like Connect 4 and Pit with some friends. Other current favorites are Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples.
  9. Write something - a short story, a long story, a how-to guide or even some thank-you notes. Start a blog and publish what you wrote.
  10. Review your goals and catch up on your to-do lists. Don’t kick yourself, just give yourself permission to take a fresh stab and make progress towards things you want to accomplish.

What about the Internet? Shouldn’t we turn that off too?
To that I’d ask: Are you learning and engaging your mind on the Internet, are you doing something interactive? Or are you just surfing MySpace, Facebook, or going from video to video? The Internet is fundamentally an interactive medium. TV is fundamentally one-way. Steve Jobs was quoted in Macworld as saying, “You watch television to turn your brain off and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.” This week, try dialing back your consumption online, and dialing up learning and creating.

Further Reading on TV Turnoff Week and on TV Watching

What are you doing this week instead of watching TV?

Posted on 22 April '08 by Tim Courtney, under Media Criticism, Musings, Pop Culture, Self-Improvement.

2 Comments to “Ten fun and productive things to do during TV Turnoff Week”

#1 Posted by Mike Maddaloni - The Hot Iron (22.04.08 at 13:31 )

Oh, NOW you tell me… I have had the TV on all week so far. But as you can’t go back, I won’t watch it from here forward.

Honestly, with the inane coverage of politics, I would rather watch documents feed into my scanner!

mp/m

#2 Posted by Tim Courtney (22.04.08 at 20:52 )

Ahh, political coverage is just as bad as commercials, perhaps even worse. Oh, and I’m glad the lawn signs haven’t started sprouting yet, but I’m sure they will soon enough…