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

How does the passive act of watching television and other electronic media-regardless of their content-affect a developing child's relationship to the real world? Focusing on this crucial question, Marie Winn takes a compelling look at television's impact on children and the family. Winn's classic study has been extensively updated to address the new media landscape, including new sections on- computers, video games, the VCR, the V-Chip and other control devices, TV programming for babies, television and physical health, and gaining control of your TV.

Table of Contents:
Preface The Good-Enough Family Note about the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition Part I. The Television Experience 1. It's Not What You Watch 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 2. A Changed State of Consciousness Television Zombies The Shutdown Mechanism Concentration or Stupor? Passivity The Reentry Syndrome 3. The Power of the Medium Why Is It So Hard to Stop Watching? Why It Captures the Child Cookies or Heroin? 4. The Experts Dr. Spock and the Tube The Medical Establishment Physical Effects 5. Television and Violence: A Different Approach First a Disclaimer Looking for a Link Making the Wrong Connection Part II. Television and Early Childhood 6. Television for Tots Baby Viewers Sesame Street Revisited The Echoes of Sesame Street How Much Do They Understand? 7. Television and the Brain Brain Changes Critical Early Experience A Caveat Nonverbal Thinking Brain Hemispheres A Commitment to Language 8. Television and Play Less Play The Meaning of Play An Experiment of Nature Play Deprivation Part III. Television and the School Years 9. A Defense of Reading 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? 10. Television and School A Negative Relationship A Stepping Stone out of a Stumbling Block (Media Literacy) Television for Homework Commercials in the Classroom A Primary Factor Part IV. How Parents Use Television 11. Before Television The Bad Old Days A New Light on Childhood How Modern Parents Survived Before Television Finally It "Took" 12. Free Time and Resourcefulness 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 13. Family Life The Quality of Life Family Rituals Real People Undermining the Family Part V. New Technologies 14. Computers in the Classroom Do They Help? Big Bucks Computers in Early Childhood Why Computers Are Not the Answer What Are They Replacing? The Computer-Television 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 15. Home Electronics The VCR A Wonderful Addition to the Family Lapware Computer Toys Video Games Computer Games Screen Time Part VI. Controlling Television 16. Out of Control 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 17. Gaining Control Real Conviction Firm Rules Control Devices and the V-Chip Natural Control Decontrol as a Means of Control Help from the Outside Videoholics Anonymous Part VII. No Television 18. TV Turnoffs Three Family Before-and-After Experiments Organized TV Turnoffs Why Did They Go Back? 19. No-TV Families Getting Rid of Television: Four Families That Did It No Television Ever CODA: The Television Generation Who Is the Televisin 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 Brief Bibliography Endnotes Acknowledgments Index

About the Author :
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.

Review :
"Still the definitive work on how and why television harms the minds and spirits of children." —Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-author of Good Work: Where Excellence and Ethics Meet"Extremely important...ought to be read by every parent." —Los Angeles Times "No one has captured the devastating effects of television the way Marie Winn has. The latest research coupled with candid and inspiring correspondence from actual families make this the best edition yet."—Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook