Plug-in Drug : Television, Computers, and Family Life

by Winn, Marie (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780142001080
• ISBN10: 0142001082
• Edition: 25th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

In The Plug-In Drug, Marie Winn demonstrates "with devastating persuasiveness" (The Washington Post) that television has a negative impact on child development, school achievement, and family life. But rather than focusing on program improvement as a solution, Winn proposes that the problem lies within the seductive act of TV watching itself. Extensive TV watching alters children's relations with the real world, depriving them of far more valuable real life experiences, especially playing and reading. Ever sympathetic to parents' need for relief, Winn proposes ways to control this addictive medium and live with it successfully. This 25th anniversary edition addresses the variety of new electronic media that have supplemented television in the home and increased children's bondage to screen experiences. It includes new sections on: * Computers in the classroom * Computer and video games * The VCR * The V-Chip and other control devices * TV programming for babies * Television and physical health

Author Biography

Marie Winn has written thirteen books, among them Children Without Childhood, Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, and Red-Tails in Love. She currently writes a column about nature for the Wall Street Journal. She has two grown children and four grandchildren who are growing up without television.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
The Good-Enough Family
Note about the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
The Television Experience
It's Not What You Watch	p. 3
The Concerns
About the Contents and Susceptible Kids
What Does Not Happen
Why Do Parents Focus on Content?
Television Savants
A Strange and Wonderful Quiet
A Changed State of Consciousness	p. 16
Television Zombies
The Shutdown Mechanism
Concentration or Stupor?
Passivity
The Reentry Syndrome
The Power of the Medium	p. 26
Why Is It So Hard to Stop Watching?
Why It Captures the Child
Cookies or Heroin?
The Experts	p. 39
Dr. Spock and the Tube
The Medical Establishment
Physical Effects
Television and Violence: A Different Approach	p. 45
First a Disclaimer
Looking for a Link
Making the Wrong Connection
Television and Early Childhood
Television for Tots	p. 55
Baby Viewers
Sesame Street Revisited
The Echoes of Sesame Street
How Much Do They Understand?
Television and the Brain	p. 67
Brain Changes
Critical Early Experience
A Caveat
Nonverbal Thinking
Brain Hemispheres
A Commitment to Language
Television and Play	p. 78
Less Play
The Meaning of Play
An Experiment of Nature
Play Deprivation
Television and the School Years
A Defense of Reading	p. 91
What Happens When You Read
Losing the Thread
The Basic Building Blocks
A Preference for Watching
Home Attitudes
Lazy Readers
Nonbooks
What about Harry Potter?
Radio and Reading
If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em
Why Books?
Television and School	p. 108
A Negative Relationship
A Stepping Stone out of a Stumbling Block (Media Literacy)
Television for Homework
Commercials in the Classroom
A Primary Factor
How Parents Use Television
Before Television	p. 121
The Bad Old Days
A New Light on Childhood
How Modern Parents Survived Before Television
Finally It "Took"
Free Time and Resourcefulness	p. 131
No Free Time
Attachment and Separation
Why Kids Can't Amuse Themselves
"Nothing to Do"
Competing with TV
The Half-Busy Syndrome
Waiting on Children
Sickness as a Special Event
Back to the Past
Family Life	p. 152
The Quality of Life
Family Rituals
Real People
Undermining the Family
New Technologies
Computers in the Classroom	p. 165
Do They Help?
Big Bucks
Computers in Early Childhood
Why Computers Are Not the Answer
What Are They Replacing?
The Computer-Television Connection
Not Making the Connection
Why Not Get Rid of Them?
The Problems of Bucking the Tide
Computers to Enhance Reading
Computer vs. Workbook
On the High School and College Front
A Matter of Balance
Home Electronics	p. 186
The VCR
A Wonderful Addition to the Family
Lapware
Computer Toys
Video Games
Computer Games
Screen Time
Controlling Television
Out of Control	p. 201
How Parents Get Hooked
A Terrible Saga
Undisciplined, Grumpy Children
Ten Reasons Why Parents Can't Control TV
Ubiquity
A Chilling Episode
A Longing for Passivity
Gaining Control	p. 223
Real Conviction
Firm Rules
Control Devices and the V-Chip
Natural Control
Decontrol as a Means of Control
Help from the Outside
Videoholics Anonymous
No Television
TV Turnoffs	p. 243
Three Family Before-and-After Experiments
Organized TV Turnoffs
Why Did They Go Back?
No-TV Families	p. 265
Getting Rid of Television: Four Families That Did It
No Television Ever
CODA: The Television Generation	p. 281
Who Is the Television Generation?
Mystery of the Declining SATs
Making Inferences
Writing Is Book Talk
Television and the Social Chill
What Is to be Done?
The Passive Pull
Helpful Organizations	p. 301
Brief Bibliography	p. 303
Endnotes	p. 305
Acknowledgments	p. 324
Index	p. 327
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