We are now well into summer and September TURNOFF WEEK is just around the corner. As an organization we are very much in transition, making it harder to get materials and reach us by telephone. If you are planning to join us for the Sept 20-26, 2009 TURNOFF and are in need of materials or information, please email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and we can get back to you with information you need on purchasing materials and other requests.

Never has it been more important to take time away from screens, engage with family and friends and focus on living life, not simply watching others via an electronic screen. The more time we spend watching and the less time we spend doing, the less experience we have in what it takes to be a full fledged human being.

Plan activities, join a club, volunteer for a nonprofit in your community…DO SOMETHING that makes you feel alive. TV and computers will always be there, but the moments you spend with them will never come back so that you can do other things. Time is the most valuable thing we have, use it in the best ways possible and enjoy the rest of the summer.

The economic downturn has had an impact on many of us, professionally and personally. Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness has been hit hard and unless there is a miracle and a swelling of support, we will close our doors sometime in June.

If you are able to support us, this is the time to do it…if you are not in a position to donate financially, purchase products or ask others to do so, we hope you will show your support by making the September 20-26 TURNOFF WEEK the best TURNOFF possible.

Even if there is no organization the very things we have stood for all these years are still vitally important and have never been more so then they are today. With more and more machines being directed at each and everyone of us, it is harder and harder to avoid the many screens we come in contact with on a daily basis.

The world is getting fatter, the world is getting more and more isolated and we, individually, are the only ones who can do something about it.

Spend time with the people you love. Talk to people face-to-face and get outside and get dirty. No matter how long our lives are, we spend a relatively short time on this amazing planet. Don’t take even a moment of that time for granted.

I hope that we will be here to encourage you and others to continue TURNOFF and other activities now and in the future, but if we don’t make it through June, I hope we can count on all of you to ensure our legacy, our shared legacy, lives on.

Thank you all for your amazing belief in what we have done together for all these years.

Political leaders insist on it, business advertising touts it and citizens claim it for themselves, but is it true? Does family really come first?

How many families sit down and have meals together? How many spend weekends together, read each other to sleep at night or share hobbies, sports or other activities?

Today the average American spends more time in front of a screen (television, computer, game, iPod) than they do in conversation or play with a real person, in real time and in real space. In fact, we are much more inclined to be with anyone other than the people who share our roof.

People around the world commute longer and longer distances to work, work longer hours, take less vacation time and when at home, are not engaged. Our living rooms, family rooms, playrooms and even bedrooms are set up like mini theaters, with all the furniture facing the screen. When do we talk?

If family came first, if it really came first, would we allow outside forces to control our time as much as we do, or would we be spending more time at home, engaged with our partners and children?

If family truly was “number one” in our lives, would we live our lives differently?

Two years ago Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness sent out letters to all US Governors and the mayors of the 70 largest US cities. We sent these letters out the first week in July, asking them to join us and others for a family dinner night on the very last Monday in September.

Not one governor nor one mayor would commit to having dinner with their family, not one. Currently a highly respected professor in the Harvard Business School is suggesting that business encourage workers to work from home at least one day per week, encouraging more family time.

Research tells us that families that eat together are often healthier, both physically and mentally. There is less drug and alcohol abuse, less cigarette smoking, less risky and early sexual activity, better grades, less divorce, a more remote likelihood of violence. When combined with dramatically reduced use of recreational screens the numbers are even better.

When family comes first, it doesn’t make all our problems vanish. When family comes first there are still everyday pressures, but we have a built in support system, a place that gives us solace in time of need and the security of people we can depend on. At a time when there is no job security, we are unsure of the future of healthcare, retirement for many has disappeared, we need secure and healthy families and communities. To do that we have to take a serious look at how we live our lives and what we make important.

Healthy families lead to healthy communities. That security leads to healthy children and a brighter future for all of us. If we are lucky enough to have a partner who loves us and children we dote on, the least we can do is have dinner with them once per week, spend time with them on the weekend and make them number one in your life in deeds as well as words.

Thank you to all who participated in the April 2009 TURNOFF WEEK. It was a great success with communities around the world participating. In Arizona a locality, from the mayor down, celebrated, in Theresa, WI they tried it for the first time and in Mexico City one school had their 7th Turnoff Week.

Surprisingly, even before the week finished we were being contacted by people about the September 20-26 week. From Australia to Albany, NY people are gearing up.

Based on much of what we are seeing, September could become an even bigger TURNOFF WEEK than April. It corresponds with the early part of the school year, when behavior patterns are set, it takes place as the new television begins and if you miss the first episode or two you are less likely to get “addicted.” The weather is still good and people can continue their outside activities from summer, so all in all, September has some very real possibilities.

Between now and September we would like to increase membership in Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness by 1,000 people. WE NEED YOU if we are going to make that happen. Basic membership is $40 and you can sign up on line, just click the button on the home page calling for a contribution.

We need your support to keep our work going. Our funding sources are individuals who understand the importance of family, friends and being in real time and real space. Your membership makes everything we do possible.

We will start a chart shortly to register where we are…help us get this started…

THANK YOU!

Now that many of you are either in TURNOFF WEEK mode or at least in the mindset, it is time to join with us and plan for the September TURNOFF WEEK from the 20-26.

If we all start putting things together now, September will be our most successful TURNOFF to date. Now is the time to reach out to neighborhood businesses, get teachers, PTA, PTO on board, talk to your HR department at work and enlist the support of local political and nonprofit leaders.

Build your team now, get fact sheets out to potential participants now, so they understand why you would like them to join you in the week.

There are many tools, the best being our Organizer’s Kit, which you can purchase on line. In addition, New York State Department of Health is making the kits and posters availabe, for FREE.

We would like to have 5,000 new schools sign up for September’s TURNOFF and at least 10 businesses taking part, as participants…in a modified version of the week.

Join us and make this the best week in your life. There is information throughout the website and we are always available to take your calls and emails. September is a perfect time for TURNOFF WEEK, the start of the new school and work season, after the wonders of summer.

We look forward to working with you in any way we can. Let us know what you think about the September TURNOFF idea, how you plan to use it and what you plan to do to make it memorable.

THANKS

Tomorrow is the start of April and our countdown to TURNOFF WEEK begins. This is the first TURNOFF in economic conditions where people are seriously taking a look at the way they live their lives, what they do and how they spend.

It is, as many have said, an opportunity to have a positive impact on our lives, our families and our world. It is not an opportunity we can afford to waste.

In twenty days we will kickoff one week where our screens are dark, it is the best time to gather friends and concerned citizens around the kitchen table. This is how organizations like MADD were started, it is even how Readers Digest was founded, and the Lillian Vernon Catalogue.

Think about what you would like to do, think about the world you would like to see and think about those you know who share your vision, your determination and hopes and bring them together around your table and see what happens.

TURNOFF WEEK doesn’t mean it has to all happen in a week, it means that this is the start of something special, the catalyst that gets you started on your new path. Maybe you will run for office, fundraise for an important cause, start a business, change careers…the “what” isn’t what matters, it is the engine of change, taking risks and living your life that matters.

Take advantage of a time when you will “be” with the people you are near, that you will talk with people, not via a cell phone or email, but face-to-face. If ever there was opportunity in the air it is now…too good an opportunity to waste.

Only a few more days before April Fools Day and the count down to TURNOFF WEEK 2009. We have so many things going on across the nation and around the world. Mexico City is getting ready, so are people in the UK and Israel.

Our national kickoff will take place in Binghamton, New York, with Barnes & Noble and the Binghamton Mets baseball team.

Join us and celebrate a week without screens, a week where family and friends really do come first. Let us see if we can, by working together, change the Nielsen ratings, limit the views on You Tube and put a dent in the number of calls on cell phones.

If we want the world to be a more hospitable place to live in, then we all have to make an effort, this is our moment. We are here to help.

These are difficult financial times and we are an organization that is not popular with media companies or electronic manufacturers. We depend on individuals, parents, teachers and librarians to survive. Your memberships, purchase of materials for TURNOFF WEEK are the funds that make our work possible.

Please consider becoming a member today, ordering a T-shirt or Organizer’s Kit and helping us help you with information you need to make intelligent decisions for your family.

Without your contributions and purchases, we will have to cut back on what we do and those who need this material the most will no longer have access to it.

If you are reading this blog, if you come to our site, if you participate in TURNOFF, please consider supporting us in this hour of need.

Thank you for your generosity and thank you for joining us in our efforts to make this a safer and healthier world for both ourselves and those who will come after us.

The week of March 8, 2009 was a bad one for children and families. Nickelodeon, the children’s top rated television network, started selling its advertising time to some major marketers. This time included its television offerings as well as spots on the many websites they own. One network is called “Addictinggames.com.” On this site they have games that feature the likes of SpongeBob, a character that is heavily promoted with a special marketing deal with Walmart.

The notion of promoting, even for entertainment sake, the notion that addiction is fun, entertaining and a good thing, by the number one children’s network, is alarming under the best of circumstances. The idea that it is also supported, even if indirectly, by the world’s largest retailer is outrageous.

It is bad enough that our children spend far more hours attached to screens than they do reading, playing, studying or engaging with other people, but to think that they are being made immune to the dangers of addiction is morally wrong.

Walmart should pull its advertising and marketing campaign from Nick and so should other advertisers. Nick should immediately change the name and branding of the website and rethink their policy of driving children to these sites.

Oh and by the way, before advertisers make a mad dash for the Cartoon Network, they own a site, also directed at children, called “addictivegames.com.” Their feet should be held to the fire as well. This is not funny, nor is it good business.

Over the years it has become very clear to us at CSTA that everything we do, or don’t do, has an impact. The same is true for screens, from the home to the school to the workplace.

Research has long held that children who spend hours with screens will not do as well in school, receiving lower grades. Now research is pointing out that too much screen-time at work is lowering productivity in the workplace.

Workers are more overweight and more depressed according to the US Department of Labor. They are spending more time at work on social networks like Facebook and U-Tube, according to Nielsen and this is leading to less work being done, but more hours being put in.

After a long day parents return home, and lets face it, they are less than anxious to spend time with their children, they want to relax.

Children are therefore left on their own, with more children than not having electronics in their bedrooms, this means even more screen-time and less sleep.

Our society has made it harder for us to be good parents, harder for our children to be good students and this leaves the workplace with depressed current workers and untrained future workers.

Something has to change…Please let us know what you think.