Homework: A week without TV or Games
My son Ben (7) came home from school last night (second grade) with an interesting homework assignment. His class is studying life in our town 100 years ago. For example they had an Old School day last week where the kids dressed appropriately and brought lunch to school in baskets, drank from tin cups, visited a local one room school house. As a continuation of the topic the assignment this week is to go without TV or any electronic devices (video games, computers). The assignment clearly states Parents are to participate as well and my son must keep a daily journal of what he chose to do instead and how he felt about giving up that stuff.
On one hand I feel like there's a hidden agenda here related to the controversy over how much screen time people, and kids specifically, get. My gut reaction to that is negative since I feel like it's an intrusion or a statement on how my wife and I choose to raise our kids. Full disclosure - we rarely limit screen time in our house unless there's special circumstances. My kids are closely monitored as we have a very open floor plan in our house (by design) with a centrally located computer. My kids also have a very solid understanding of what TV programs and what websites they should visit. On top of that I'm fortunate that my kids both instinctively choose what I consider a healthy balance of 'screen time' activities versus playing outside, art projects, reading, etc. I feel we're giving them the tools to make good decisions themselves (but monitoring the situation to help and guide when they don't). That's my choice and responsibility as a parent.
Aside from my personal frustrations with this it's been interesting watching my son respond. He's very competitive by nature so he sees this as a personal challenge and stepped right up to it. I won't say he's thrilled but he's not complaining and finding other ways to occupy his time. Rather than watch the Red Sox last night he listened to the radio broadcast (radio is allowed in the assignment). This morning he got the paper out of the mailbox and read the sports section rather than turn on SportsCenter. As for myself, I figured after he went to bed I could be allowed to terminate the assignment for the night and do some gaming. Instead I picked up a book and fell asleep on the couch. Upside is I'm better rested this morning than in weeks.
So far I find I miss gaming more than TV - except for the lack of ESPN, live sports and news.
Anyone else try something similar to this? Think you'd have a hard time cutting the cord for a week?
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I would track down the teacher and beat him/her with a tire iron.
Probably a good thing I don't have kids.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Eh, I haven't watched TV in months. I think I'll sell it.
I don't think I played any games last month, but this week I'm playing TF2.
So yeah, I wouldn't have any problems. I think most americans are really addicted to TV.
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This would be easy for me. The hard part would be avoiding the internet, but still not difficult. It would be some damned good incentive to pick up one of the many books sitting on my "To Read" stack. I already don't watch TV. Usually less than two hours a week, anyway, and part of that may be a Jeopardy episode I happened to catch, and This Old House. Not a hard sacrifice there at all. My "To Play" stack of video games shows that I'm not all that committed to gaming, either... although that may be TF2's fault. It's almost as insidious as an MMO. But I think I could reasonably set it aside. And I'd still have no trouble with just radio either... I already listen to NPR regularly.
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My daughter (just turned 9) has a similar assignment at school, although it only applied to her. It wasn't hard for her as she's very active and with the weather here in Oregon turning nice again, outdoor time has always been preferrable. We are also advid readers in this house, so TV has never been much of a draw (in fact, our "main TV" is an old 27" we bought in 1995). She did miss the computer, though, as she has a great fondness for Zoo Tycoon 2 & those RPGs she can play with her parents.
For myself, interesting Discovery type programs, ESPN and the occassional live sporting event is all I watch.. and I could live without those. The computer, though, it a whole other matter. For one, it's part of my livelihood. Two, I have a great love for online RPGs. Three, it's also one of the most common ways I interact and keep in contact with friends and family.
So, giving up the TV... yawn... giving up the PC & Internet.. a little tougher. We are just talking about 1 week, right?
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I don't have TV for four and half years now. I stopped missing it after two weeks and never looked back. Keeping off gaming would be more demanding, but not a big deal either, there are weeks when I don't have time or energy for gaming either. Interesting assignment, but I would keep it voluntary, I find it too much intrusion into parenting and family. I'm with Parsley on this I guess, and I would be probably very vocal about my dissatisfaction with teacher's method.
EDIT: spelling
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If the secret point of the assignment is to get parents to set a "good" example by staying away from electronic gizmos, its success is likely to be very limited. The parents who already use electronic babysitters as a substitute for interacting with their kids are just going to ignore the assignment for themselves, and probably not enforce it for their children either.
If the point is to show kids just how good they have it in comparison to their ancestors, however, I like it. Get them to watch "Texas Ranch House", "1900 House", or one of the other PBS series the next time they whine about not having anything to do/how much their life sucks/etc.
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TV would be easy. Telephone, a little harder. Computer, even harder. Internet...maybe I should try it too.
Rat Boy on Newlywed Ackbar wrote:
I hear my landlady's kid whine all the time about how summer camp was unbearable without his portable video games and just about wanted to smack him. Here your mom is sending you off to a week of hiking, boating, fishing, and who knows what and you're complaining about not having games to waste your time with?
Jeez. Youth truly is wasted.
There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism,... those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
My wife had a similar challenge when she was in grad-school. The teacher cooked up a "last man standing" contest to see who could go the longest without watching television. My wife wanted to test her meddle in earnest and suggested that the only way she could avoid temptation would be to cancel our cable television subscription. I don't watch much TV anyway, so I was game. She went on to win the contest and after months of not having or missing cable, we never turned it back on. It's been over 5 years now (though we do watch HBO shows like Flight of the Concords and John Adams over at our friend's house.
I would totally crumble if the contest was to stop using the internet though. If I had to go for more than a couple days w/o it, I'd curl up in a ball and cry like a baby. I often wonder how exactly we got along as a society before Al Gore invented it.
I remember well life in the 70's...no remotes for TV, no cable programing, no VCRs/DVD players, no answering machines/cell phones, no CDs or MP3s, no microwave ovens or ATM machines, etc., etc...but I simply can't fathom how we made it without the internets.
I wonder what the next revolution in tech will be where future people will look back to where we are today and wonder how we got along?
Giving up the internet would be harder than giving up TV. Further, I don't see why the teacher made an exception for radio. If you're going to do this, do it hardcore! Turn off the electric power at dark. That happened to me during a power failure one night a few summers ago. For a few hours, I was reading under candlelight just like Lincoln. Then I went to bed early.
And let me tell you, it really blew. I much prefer our current way of living.
All that I could handle. If I had to live without air conditioning, though, I would commit suicide immediately.
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Know what else was different 100 years ago? Tuberculosis outbreaks. In fact, they'd just developed a vaccine for Typhoid.
On the other hand, I think that folks wanting to indulge such Luddite fantasies are going to have to revisit their chronographs soon. 100 is a nice, round number, but 100 years ago was still the the twentieth century. We had phones, radios, music, electric lights, etc. already. In just a few years, we're going to see the 100-year anniversary of "talkies."
On the other hand, this sort of assignment will soon mean giving up alcohol for a week--We need to stop these assignments now.
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The technology of radio existed more than 100 years ago, but really it wasn't in wide use in homes until the 1920's.
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We used to have these assignments too while I was growing up. But we called it "camping".
There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism,... those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
I have to agree the internet access is probably the hardest part to give up (although I said gaming at first). I guess since the "experiment" is "off" while I'm at work and have internet it's easier to bear not using it at home at night.
My normal schedule is so closely tied to ending the day with a little gaming or TV that I really notice it's absence. That and doing the morning routine without the news on feels odd. I did get a detailed update from Ben this morning on the latest news in baseball direct from the Sports pages - almost like having SportsCenter broadcast live from my kitchen.
I forgot to mention the reaction of my 5 year old daughter. She insisted that since the assignment didn't mention siblings or the "family" as a whole it doesn't apply to her. It's kind of funny watching her "torture" her brother by plopping on the couch to watch some TV or playing with her DS. Honestly though she seems to be taking to it a bit herself anyway. She killed the TV, games and computer last night for over an hour to do some craft projects and reading. Ironically I think she felt a bit "left out".
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We turned of the TV signal over 10 years ago, so no problem there. Cutting the games would be hard but okay because of all my boardgames, etc. But the internet sucks. We had that huge power outage Christmas before last and were out of EVERYTHING for over a week. That was a challenge.
These assignments only get them what the kid is willing to put into it. If the teacher really wanted to simulate it, they should have them hauling firewood and not having hot water except by heating it up in a pot for a while. Oh, and not eating anything that comes out of a box.
Duoae wrote:
Er... perhaps not the site for this sentiment? I personally was never a fan of summer camp. 10 days of awful food, crapping into holes in the ground and 100 degree heat was never my idea of fun.
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I loved summer camp. Always a great way to make out with girls.
For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. ~Ron Shelton, Bull Durham, 1988
But you don't spend the other 355 days of the year living in the real world, since you already live in Minnesota.
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If we're talking Network/Cable television, then no big deal, I didn't have cable for 3 years when I lived in my apartment. But if you try to take away my DVDs we're gonna have...problems.
Back when I was in college I actually gave up my computers for 2 weeks straight because I set them up as part of an interactive display for my senior art show. That was a trying experience for me but I viewed it as a sort of social experiment to see if I really could continue my normal existence by just using the resources the college provided in the computer labs and library. Of course it probably helped that I was a lab assistant and rarely left the lab anyways, but that's beside the point. It did help me realize I needed my unplugged time. It was kind of surprising how much I actually got done and how much fun I had in that time away.
Mex wrote:
I can go without games and TV, but hiking, boating, and fishing are about as unappealing as activities come for me.
That's why sports were invented, because "outside" is pretty damn boring without them... unless you're at the beach... or finding secluded spots to sneak off to with girls...
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The quote of the year happened quite unexpectedly when I was having a summertime dinner on the deck outside my in-law's place. Her parents put on a nice dinner and invited a couple of our close friends. One was in the military for a brief period and the topic rolled around to Basic Training. He was humorously recounting horror stories about how the new recruits would be pushed so hard that some would break down and cry while others would simply pass out from exhaustion.
Without skipping a beat, my second friend chimed in with, "You think that's bad, you should have went to Bible Camp like I did!" Years later we still repeat that line and crack up.
In reality, I remember going to camp as a kid and having an absolute blast. I was in the Boy Scouts for a bit and I attended summer camp in Goshen, VA for several seasons. While there I earned several outdoor Merit Badges such as swimming, hiking, canoeing, etc. My time there definitely ranks among my more fond childhood memories.
I've probably done this multiple times in the last six months.
Of course never watching TV anyway doesn't hurt. So yeah, on the occasional week where I don't manage to fire up a game system this just kinda happens.
Betcha I could do it this week too if I actually wanted to. Friends and I will be outdoors on at least two of our days off work shooting targets with real guns first and then each other with airsoft guns next. Should be good times as long as we don't mix the two up
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Aaron D., I agree with your friend. I think I'd prefer basic to bible camp. :shudder:
Duoae wrote:
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Four years ago we moved into our current apartment. We had the DirectTV guys come out to install a dish but there's a huge tree blocking the satellite. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I can't stand the majority of television now. We did however buy a $40 antenna that picks up HD stations (about 5) so we can watch Lost and Heroes.
I have a difficult time giving up games. I'm in the middle of finals and I want to fire up GTA so badly it hurts. Hopefully I can make it another week.
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When I was in junior high I had to give up any and all games for almost a year because I wasn't doing my homework (Never found it really interesting...still don't, but I do it anyways since it'll get me "somewhere")
So a weak without computers, tv, etc wont bother me. It'll be nice time to finish up the 4 books I'm reading right now.
I think that's a pretty cool and interesting school assignment.
I've gone through periods of no gaming when i've been camping or walking for a few weeks (and once on holiday in Canada for a month) and while i miss it when i have nothing to do, i've never felt an urge to do it when i'm active or have some activity pending (such as fixing something). I think that i choose to game in the same way that i choose to read - when i have nothing else that's more pressing and urgent (with one exception - thesis writing).
On the other hand, i've pretty much done without TV for over two years, only occasionally watching the odd show and movie. Generally i game instead.
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