The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life Review

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The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life ReviewWith this book, Marie Winn has written an arch (though lengthy) indictment of television's pervasive and largely detrimental impact on childhood culture. With sixty years' worth of data, studies and surveys as ammo, she makes a nearly airtight case for why television should be strictly limited for the elementary children and why the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that no children under the age of 2 be allowed to watch is not just commendable, but physiologically and neurologically imperative. She lays out her small mountain of evidence that the practice of ritualistic television watching dulls children's sensitivity to others, negatively affects family life, nearly annihalates their motivation to contribute to their own development as critical thinkers and, especially, critical and enthusiastic readers, and generally, is neither necessary nor desirable as the cultural stronghold it's become.
Ms. Winn peppers her work with diverse perspectives from different families on the effects of television on children, from mothers who let their toddlers watch unlimitedly, to old-skool teachers who think it's ruined kid's minds. She also makes a comparative (though obviously tacked-on for the updated version) survey of computer games, video games, and online usage, arguing that it's all "screen time" and has more or less the same effect on children's intellectual and emotional productivity. She provides case studies of families who have tried to severely limit or altogether forgo television with unbiased candor (some of the families fail in their efforts, find the effort totally unpleasant, or end up going with a less radical approach than their initial cold-turkey strategy). Most helpfully, she provides practical tactics for reducing or getting rid of television in your home without causing your children and spouse to disown you. She lays out the ten most common reasons why parents fail to act on limiting their kids' television usage, then one by one, she provides solid, confidence-building reasoning against each one. After I read this section, I felt like I had a LOT more conviction in my decision making, and in applying her strategies, I will say that everything she predicted has come true: my child is indeed reading more, we are indeed spending more time together as a family, his social skills have indeed improved, he has become less aggressive and more imaginative, and we don't miss anything we used to watch.
With all that said, it's important to understand this author's perspective going into this. According to Ms. Winn, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOOD about letting your child watch television. She acknowledges that there are "many fine television shows" and that "some may even be educational," but in the end, her thesis is that it's not the content of what your kids watch that matters, but the *experience* of sitting passively and "letting images wash over you" in a half-trance "zone" for hours that is so damaging for children.
This philosophy, while in and of itself isn't necessarily wrong or bad, leads Ms. Winn to make incrementally more far-fetched and less supported claims, including that television makes children so unpleasant that it has actually caused a greater number of working mothers, is largely responsible for destroying the nuclear family, can probably be blamed for school violence (her reasoning: children whose main social experience is not with another human being but with an electronic machine can't be expected to care about other humans' well-being), is causally linked to climbing divorce rates, ADHD, the loss of music and arts programs in school, the rise in learning disabilities and autism, bad politicians getting elected (it's not like a television-educated/dependent public can be expected to make sound, informed decisions!) and... I could go on.
I think that, had she simply laid out her case about the direct effect on children, this book would've been enough to convince any caring parent that TV-watching is something that, for children, should not occur unfettered. I feel, though, that she felt a need to "drive her point home" by adding all these other macrocosmic reasons to support this claim, and it wasn't just unnecessary, it was just plain hard to believe after a certain point, and undermines her entire thesis.
Still, I would recommend this book to any parent. Her main point is a strong one; her case for her claims, if laden with support-overkill, is damn near airtight. If you are a parent, you won't help but question your own children's television viewing habits and more strongly consider setting limits of your own, and that, ultimately, is a very good thing.The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life Overview

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