THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9605310464
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 74 lines
For one week this spring - longer for some - many families across America found their lives were more interesting, not less, without television.
``We found that it encouraged letter writing more,'' said Deborah O'Malley of Chesapeake, whose family went without television for a month. ``We'd say, hey, instead of watching that show, you could write a page of your letter. With our family so far away, we like to write letters to them.''
Craig Baylis, 8, of Boston, Mass., said he was upset at first about doing without televised Red Sox games. Then he and his second-grade classmate, David Lee, went with their Cub Scout troop to Fenway Park, where the baseball team plays.
``It was better in person,'' Craig said. ``We got to see Mo Vaughn in person. We were going: `Go, Mo! Go, Mo! Go, Mo!' ''
Across the country, families are trying to figure out what they're missing when they watch television. One by one, they're living without television to see what that kind of living is like.
``This is an opportunity for us to tell our own stories,'' said Henry Labalme, the 34-year-old founder of TV-Free America, who has never owned a television set.
His group is one of those promoting the notion. TV-Free America sponsors TV-Turnoff Week every year.
Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben is another. McKibben calls television ``the loudest voice in many American households'' and wrote ``The Age of Missing Information.'' The book explores what kinds of information you get from television, contrasted with the kind of knowledge you gain from, say, nature.
``We believe that we live in the `age of information,' that there has been an information `explosion,' an information `revolution,' '' McKibben writes. ``While in a certain narrow sense this is the case, in many important ways just the opposite is true.
``We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach.''
There is no indication this is sweeping the country. It is impossible to tell how many Americans turned off their television sets. Labalme says 12,000 people across the country acted as organizers for the week.
Here are a few things parents found their children did instead of watching television: Played in their sandbox. Read books. Drew chalk pictures on the driveway. Looked for salamanders. Watched birds in their yard. Dressed up as pirates.
Emmet Kelty, a 9-year-old boy in Bedford, Mass., said, ``The first time I heard about it, I thought I would die.'' But after six days without television, he declared: ``Television is a waste of time. Television is bogus. It mesmerizes you.''
Instead of watching reruns of a British comedy one night as usual, Alan MacRobert read to his two children. After putting them to bed, MacRobert, an associate editor for Sky and Telescope magazine, went out in his yard and looked at the moon through his telescope.
``The moon doesn't come down and sing and dance on the screen for you,'' he said. ``The universe only gives back the effort you put into studying it and watching it.''
Deborah O'Malley's husband, Patrick, volunteered his family, including daughters Caitlin and Megan, for a separate no-television experiment in January organized by The Virginian-Pilot.
``I always thought we were selective, but we've become more selective,'' Deborah O'Malley said.
``Sometimes when the kids are alone, I can hear them say, `We better not watch that. We better turn that off.' ''
Her last word about the experiment: ``Only positive stuff came out of it. Nothing negative.'' MEMO: The New York Times News Service contributed to this report.
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