hi
i just came across your site. i have stopped watching tv during the last two
months and have since read about 10 novels- much more than i read in the past
year. (i also feel calmer, better about myself, smarter, etc. reading gives
you a lot more to add to a conversation than having watched the most recent
episode of "friends"). i was looking at your link "good books-
what to do instead of watching iv". i think you should add another category
for contemporary or new fiction too. i think it may get a younger crowd more
interested or at least sway people who are not initially likely to make the
big jump from "jerry springer" to "for whom the bell tolls".
just a thought.
thanks for your site!
tania
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 2:15 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Great Job!!
Hello my name is Pat. I stumbled across your site today and I have to say I think you guys are doing great things. I've always felt the same way about tv and im glad your try to get people to read and see the beauty of nature. I think you guys are awesome and I hope you keep it up for a long time.
Sincerely,
Pat
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 1:01 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Hello from Brazil
Hi,
My name is Wilson and I'm a teacher from Brazil. Very interesting your website.
Congratulations! I'm working on my thesis and, as the theme is media literacy,
your website was extremely valuable. But, hey, just one comment: everything
was wonderful until I saw the link "T-shirts, stickers and the like".
It was funny, because you do the same thing, I mean, you also want us to buy
what we don't need (same thing the TV does), but this is not a criticism, it's
just a comment. This is the way things things are. What is good is to let people
become media literate and able to read between the lines and start selecting
what it's good for them, what is just BS (sometimes necessary), what can change
their values, etc. Very good job. Wilson
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 12:51 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Regarding Television
I'm writing to express my absolute glee in finding so much anti-tv information!
You certainly have a lot of resources here, and I'm glad to see such thoughtful
feedback from others as well. I was a latchkey kid growing up and learned to
keep a tv on for the comfort of another voice. At around 16 or so the whole
idea of sitting around so much bothered me, and I've been a vocal assailant
of television and the waste it introduces into our lives.
I told my brother just today, "You would rather watch someone else pretend
to do what you could be doing yourself in real life. How sad." He just
blinked at me and went back to his crappy show.
I haven't completely perused the site, but I haven't seen Neil Postman mentioned
here yet. He has some very cogent arguments against television as an educational
medium. For news I personally prefer to listen to talk radio. It has spurred
so many lively discussions in my car, I suggest that everyone try turning on
am radio or NPR or a radio opera (they still have them!).
Anyway, keep doing what you're doing. It's great work.
--Tanya
Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2003 8:58 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Linked to your site
Just a note to let you know that I have put up a link to your site from
one of my pages. It's at the bottom of an entry in my notebook entitled
Toxic TV Culture, and can be found at:
http://www.catherders.com/Notebook-Evelyne/tv.html
Thanks for maintaining the Kill Your TV Home Page. I do think
moderation is a possible solution - moderation at a couple of hours a
week, very deliberately and thoughtfully chosen. (No sitcoms, of
course.) But it's good to have resources like yours available to help
people make their own more informed choices.
Evelyne Stalzer
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 12:57 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Props on the page
Just wanted to say thanks for the website. Keep it up!
I read Mander’s 4 arguments in college (required reading) and I think it planted the seed. I’ve only had TV for about 6 months in the past 10 years..when I briefly moved into a house where cable was installed. I had a Set to watch a video now and again, and this area has no broadcast signals, so you really only could watch movies…but the Cable killed me.
It was during the 2000 elections, and the constant new was horrible. Anyway, I’ve been TV free since Jan 2001, and I’m glad to have my life back.
Next week, I’m giving a speech to encourage people to kill their TV or at least cancel Cable. Your website helps a lot with the research.
Dave
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 3:16 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: I like your site.
Dear Mr. Kaufman:
I agree with turning off your television. I have found myself sitting like a
zombie in front of the television. My kids have theirs blasting, especially
in the wee hours while they're knocked out asleep. I cannot and they do not
function commonly with Television in our domain. I have vowed, wholeheartedly,
to put these blasted boxes that cost me money monthly to the local cable company
to view them clearly, into the deep recesses of my closet, covered up for a
year. After that time frame, I'll sell them.
I've heard somewhere, that there are two kinds of people in this world: People
who watch the world go by, And people who are watched going by. I will continue
to visit you and I wish you the very best in all you do.
Thank you,
Veronica
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 7:34 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Just happy to see your sight
Yes you have proable heard this from a thousand other
souls but I liked your sight and I thought I would
take the time to tell you so. I'm the only one in a
household of five individuals that doesn't have a tv
in my room. I don't watch tv, rather I perfer to
waste my time searching the internet for hours on
various whims. I think it is funny that I got to your
sight from a link in an article that was posted on a
websight that points out pagan issues in the news.
The article was about the mergers that will be
possible with the recent fcc decisions. Oh well have
a fun day and keep up the good work.
Blessed is the journey
Alex
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 6:32 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Ron, Reality Website
I would just like to say...nice work on the website. It started to make me think about my situation. I do watch too much tv. The worst part of it, I just realized. When I remember any part of my 22 years on this earth, not a single memory was watching television. Why am I spending 4 hours a day doing something that I will barely remember next month, let alone a year or 2 from now? My answer, I have no clue.
It actually makes me feel a little ill, thinking of all the other activities
I could be doing. Heck, even if the other activities don't lead me to lifetime
enlightenment, at least I'll remember them! I guess it's time to unplug the
illuminated god and find something else to do.
-b0b-
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 2:14 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: thanks
Hi Ron,
Long story short, my name is Jason. Around 1994 I abandoned my TV. Without going off on a rant, it has been an interesting near-decade. After 6 years of no-television I began to have my own thoughts and ideas. Ideas I coudln't link back to any advertising campaign. Now I'm amazed at my friends attitude toward war. I could stomach it much more if I thought they were facing the facts and still coming to their conclusion but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I just read your short essay, "The Zen of Television." Guess I just wanted to say "thanks."
Regards,
Jason
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 2:50 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: TRASH your television
Thought you might find this link interesting. It is a topic very related to
your site. Help spread the word: http://www.areyougeneric.org/shirts_001.html
Trash TV
Television sucks you in, evaporating your energy and diminishing your will to
think. We sit limp and stare thoughtless in front of a box that never lets us
disagree, interact, or talk back. We absorb the artificial, the fake -- corporate-sponsored
News disguised as truth, the plastic sitcom disguised as vibrant life.
It is not a babysitter; it is not your best friend; it is not art; it is not exercise. Moderate your use. Turn it off to make time for loving, playing, painting, and reading. Trash your TV.
Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 12:27 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Turn off TV website
Just want to say that there are far too few websites like yours concerning television. I didnt notice amongst your quotes from Network Howard Beale's other 'sermon' about how TV can 'make of break Presidents, Popes, Primer Ministers...' and how it is an 'amusement park' and not the Truth. That is truly classic. But your website is great, and Im including one of your banners on my website (about communing w/nature). Since I've taken up hiking+birding, Ive actually built a social life and have recently (2 wks ago) threw my tv in the trash.
George
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 12:09 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Very awsome page
I'm in college, and I'm writing a research paper
called "Why Television is Bad for You and The World."
Just wanted to comment on turnoffyourtv.com, and let
you know that it's been an awsome resource for ideas
and approaches and that you will definitely be cited
in my paper. If you want to read my paper when I'm
done I'll send it to you, but I'm sure there won't tbe
anything in it you aren't familiar with.
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2003 10:44 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: Great Site
Well researched and well put together. It's so often these days that I think to myself "ya know, someone should put together a web-site that points out xyz" only to find out someone already has and has done a much better job than I was even imagining. Thanks for the work !!!
Ken Holthouser
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 1:01 PM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Subject: compliments
I'm 30, a graphic designer and semi-pro musician, I live in the 34 largest TV market in the US, I am a one-time TV junkie, and I don't watch TV at all these days.
Frankly, American TV is absolutely peurile. Broadcast TV for sure...most cable as well, from what I've seen. I can't justify paying $30 a month for it, guilty pleasures like Cartoon Network, Game Show Network, Comedy Central, and Sci-Fi Channel aside. Not to mention the $1500 I would have to plunk down for a new set when TV goes completely digital in 2006.
It's hard to convince myself that TV really wasn't any better when I was a devout viewer as a kid. I have plenty of fond memories of now-classic shows when they were in first run. It couldn't have been worse than the shit they broadcast now. It wasn't. Usually it was simply just as bad. In some cases better. But I sure did enjoy it at one point. Nostalgia is indeed a minor form of mental illness, ain't it?
And I found myself strangely drawn to the TV when I was in Germany for 3 months in 1995 as a college student. For the most part that programming was even more gag-inducing than the stuff here. But I dug it. Perhaps it was the loneliness and culture-shock that did it.
So now I'm an anti-TV rebel. I couldn't give less of a crap that Friends is on its last legs, or that Alias is supposed to be the paragon of quality sci-fi drama these days, or which singing mannequin is gonna win on American Idol. Fortunately I'm past the age where most of my friends would chastise me for it.
I'm not against TV per se, tho...even after fifty years the technology is still largely untapped and has a lot of potential. It's just that right at the start it was hijacked by the same advertising-based corporate mentality that shaped radio before it. It's unlikely that that's ever going to change, even with the opening up of new avenues with digital TV. The technological barriers to entry are enormous. Forget any new and innovative low power local community-access type stations to have any airspace outside of the allottment grudgingly required by law on cable.
Down with the megamediaconglomerates. Down with shit shows. Down with the zombification and coercion-consumerism of the masses. And down with the advertisers.
But not down with TV itself.
Keep fighting the good fight, Ron.
William J. Spiropoulos
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 3:51 AM
To: kaufman@turnoffyourtv.com
Dear Mr, Kaufman,
I just found your wonderful. I have been television free for a while now, and I find that its mere presense distrubs my state of mind. It is an escapist drug that is more addictive than most realise. Keep up the great work. I find it hard to offer my Islamic prayers when one of my roomates has it on in the next room. I find it to be something that sucks the soul out of people, and makes the static...much like an untuned television set
