Imagine going without television for one month. To some, this could be comparable to living without food or water! Today’s kids can’t imagine the days before television, let alone without cable television and the like. We, as a community, can all benefit from one month without television and perhaps start a wave of experiments like this across America. Then everyone could truly see that as entertaining as TV may be, it’s not doing us any favors.

Obesity rates among Americans have increased steadily for the past 20 years, and are the highest in the world. We attribute much of this to poor diet habits, however we fail to look beyond that. Combining that with an extreme lack of exercise, usually because we’re ‘glued to the tube,’ is devastating our general health as Americans.

Recent spikes in crime rates are often attributed to violent programming on the airwaves. Whether it is positive or negative, television is a role model in our children’s lives. We have children trying dangerous stunts like professional wrestlers. Society also advocates that a life of crime is worth pursuing because of the recent invasion of true-crime shows glamorizing criminals.

As much as we all like to blame television for our problems in society, it never fails that we plant ourselves in front of them every night and try to justify it by calling it “family time.” Many parents have forgotten the old “How was your day at school” routine they received coming in from school as kids. Family dinners have been spent in silence, watching someone else live life through a screen. Homework-help sessions have become available only during commercials. We are raising our children to tune out of life and into television. Let’s see what we can achieve if we remove TVs from the home for one month, and see if our community doesn’t improve!