Anti-TV Books
Overview Books
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
Get a Life! by David Burke
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
Effects of TV on Children
Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think And What We Can Do About It by Jane M. Healy
The Plug-in Drug: Television, Children, and the Family; Revised Edition by Marie Winn
The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman
More on how TV Effects us in Negative ways
Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience (Routledge Communication Series) by Robert William Kubey
How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence by Karen E. Dill
Broadcast Television Effects in A Remote Community (Routledge Communication Series) by Tony Charlton
Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives by Aric Sigman
Television's Effect on Politics
The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter by Roderick P. Hart
The Sack of Rome: Media + Money + Celebrity = Power = Silvio Berlusconi by Alexander Stille
More Effects of TV
The Age of Missing Information by Bill McKibben
Noise Wars: Compulsory Media and Our Loss of Autonomy by Robert Freedman
Living TV-Free
The Big Turnoff: Confessions of a TV-Addicted Mom Trying to Raise a TV-Free Kid by Ellen Currey-Wilson
Living Outside the Box: TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets by Barbara J. Brock
Living Without the Screen: Causes and Consequences of Life without Television (Lea's Communication) by Marina Krcmar
Kick the TV Habit: A Simple Program for Changing Your Family's Television Viewing and (more) by Steve Bennett
T.V.: The Great Escape! : Life-Changing Stories from Those Who Dared to Take Control by Robert G. DeMoss Jr.
Yes Man by Danny Wallace
365 TV-Free Activities You Can Do With Your Child: Plus 50 All-New Bonus Activities by Steven J. Bennett
What to Do After You Turn Off the TV by Frances Moore Lappe
501 TV-Free Activities for Kids (501 TV-Free Kids) by Diane Hodges
Adult Fiction with an anti-TV Message
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Children's Fiction with an anti-TV Message
The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg
Feed by M. T. Anderson
The TV Kid by Betsy Byars
The Great TV Turn-Off (Cul-de-sac Kids, No. 18) (Book 18) by Beverly Lewis
Fred's TV by Clive Dobson
The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV by Stan Berenstain
Fix-It (Picture Puffin) by David M. McPhail
-----
Anti-TV Books - List
Living Outside the Box – Book Review
Barbara Brock surveyed over 500 Low-TV and No-TV families, and further interviewed a number of these families in person. The result is her interesting and excellent book “Living Outside the Box”. Why have these families given up TV ? What do they do with their time? Are they social outcasts? These are some of the questions Barbara Brock seeks to answer.
What I found most fascinating were the reasons given for living TV-Free. Basically these reasons could be put into four broad categories:
- Resentment and Frustration. Resentment at being raised with too much TV and/or frustration with their own families being too TV oriented.
- Technical Difficulties. TVs breaking down, or moving to an area with poor TV reception. And finding the resulting TV-Free existence to be liberating instead of boring.
- Outside Prompts. Inspirations such as TV-Turnoff Week, Waldorf Schools, and books about the negative effects of TV.
- Raised Without TV. The stereotype is that children raised without TV will become total TV addicts when given the opportunity. As it turns out, growing up without TV was also a major reason for living TV-Free as adults.
And what I liked best about this book was that in addition to facts and figures, Outside the Box is also filled with stories from the interviews and feedback. My favorite story was about Jenny, a mom who would labor over a family dinner and then have to tear her kids and husband away from their separate TVs for a family get-together dinner. Finally, out of frustration, she took the garden shears and literally cut the TV cable. Her youngest son started to cry, her two daughters quickly took off to a friend’s TV-filled house, and her husband just stared in amazement. Now, years later, and still TV free, family dinners have become unhurried and filled with conversation, the kids have found lots to do, and even her husband has discovered that “at least now I know as much about my own kids as I used to know about The Simpsons”.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6053 ... de_the_Box
See also:
http://ebookbrowse.com/30-days-live-pdf-d217748437
What I found most fascinating were the reasons given for living TV-Free. Basically these reasons could be put into four broad categories:
- Resentment and Frustration. Resentment at being raised with too much TV and/or frustration with their own families being too TV oriented.
- Technical Difficulties. TVs breaking down, or moving to an area with poor TV reception. And finding the resulting TV-Free existence to be liberating instead of boring.
- Outside Prompts. Inspirations such as TV-Turnoff Week, Waldorf Schools, and books about the negative effects of TV.
- Raised Without TV. The stereotype is that children raised without TV will become total TV addicts when given the opportunity. As it turns out, growing up without TV was also a major reason for living TV-Free as adults.
And what I liked best about this book was that in addition to facts and figures, Outside the Box is also filled with stories from the interviews and feedback. My favorite story was about Jenny, a mom who would labor over a family dinner and then have to tear her kids and husband away from their separate TVs for a family get-together dinner. Finally, out of frustration, she took the garden shears and literally cut the TV cable. Her youngest son started to cry, her two daughters quickly took off to a friend’s TV-filled house, and her husband just stared in amazement. Now, years later, and still TV free, family dinners have become unhurried and filled with conversation, the kids have found lots to do, and even her husband has discovered that “at least now I know as much about my own kids as I used to know about The Simpsons”.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6053 ... de_the_Box
See also:
http://ebookbrowse.com/30-days-live-pdf-d217748437
Re: Anti-TV Books - List
Thank you for the list!
Re: Anti-TV Books - List
@miffle Welcome to whitedotboard! 