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| The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Marie Winn
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $2.89
You Save: $12.11 (81%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 151363
Media: Paperback
Edition: 25 Anv
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0142001082
Dewey Decimal Number: 302.2345083
EAN: 9780142001080
ASIN: 0142001082
Publication Date: March 26, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NAME ON INSIDE COVER, ships in bubble wrap/envelope, I ship every weekday
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| Customer Reviews:
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 Shocking Parents with Common Sense January 18, 2008
Other reviewers here have done a good job of discussing the book, particularly in regards to academia and science (whether arguing a presence or lack of).
As a young parent who grew up around the TV, and someone who watched a lot of TV as a teenager and young adult I feel it would be best to describe what the book means to someone who is looking for easy to apply common sense in raising their children. This book has a lot of clear, easy to understand anecdotal and "just plain common sense" examples of how TV _may_ cause harm.
This is not a book against TV, this is a book against using the TV as substitute for needed life experience.
Rather than addressing the content of the TV as an issue, the author addresses the lack of content. Specifically... the lack of real-world, 2 way interaction.
An early example given by the book is Nature programs. The author points out, that of everything on TV today this would seem a wonderful, safe choice for your children. But the author goes on to point out that a nature TV program is a poor substitute for real outdoor experience, where your child can personally see, touch, hear and smell, in an experience far more valuable to your child than any 2 dimensional image on a TV. The author goes on to argue that too much of such programming could actually interfere with a child enjoying the real out-of-doors as a hike through the woods to see a waterfall pales in comparison to watching tigers chase down a gazelle or water buffalo (on the T.V.).
The author provides a myriad of valuable insights into the previously 'unconsidered' damage too much T.V. can do, as well as pointing out the value of the T.V. when approached carefully.
I can find little fault with this book that other 4 star reviewers have not pointed out already. This is an excellent book for anyone that wants the best for their children but understands and accepts that they'll not be eliminating TV or other non-interactive entertainment from their child's life.
 you may not want to know this... January 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
this book was really eye opening. it isn't so much what is on, but the fact that the tv is on that is the problem. i have noticed with my own children that the tv causes them to behave differently. people don't want to admit that, but it is true. i feel that the book is even more relevent now then when it was first published. now that there is so much more tv to watch and stuff being pushed as "educational" more screen time in general with computers, gameboys, cell phones, yada yada... it's too much. we have gotten to the point of needing it NOW so much that we forget how important the journey is. turn off your tv/computer and turn on life!
mother of 5
 Irresponsible February 20, 2007
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is ultimately an opinion piece.
The studies and science used to drive the author's point home are not explored objectively.
One area of study the author focuses on what she feels is a detrimental effect to left brain thinking - by illustrating that television viewing engages the right brain more than the left... this point makes no sense in her argument when considering that right brain development is also important to the whole mind, and has a history of neglect in the education system.
Most of her claims are borne out with 'evidence' she gleans from anecdotes. She especially likes to rely on retired teachers and other people who are unaccustomed to modern living. Surely their experience has value - but when presented with no observations from other people (giving that retired teachers must surely make up a small percentage of the educated population) is entirely irresponsible. One brief mention of her reason for this is given - that anyone younger has been brain damaged by television, and hypnotized into being its devoted disciple.
Television is presented as a mindless activity - regardless of the fact that some of the most creative, talented, artistic and educated people the world has ever seen are responsible for what is produced on television. Surely there is trash TV - but there is irrefutable value in other programing, including children's programing.
Her assertion that children are passive zombies (her actual words) while watching television does not bare out in the experience of many people. If a parent is disconnected enough from their child to not understand the motivations for their viewing specific programs - that parent is failing to connect - the television is not to blame. For the people that do have an actual problem, are out of touch with their kids, allow them to have televisions in their rooms at a young age and watch as much as they please - this book is of value.
Most people can evaluate their own lives and find simple solutions. The assumption of this book is that they can not - and since some people watch more television than is healthy (for their social development), everyone should get rid of their televisions.
She also insists that computers are just as bad, have no value, and should not be present in schools. Perhaps she has not toured many workplaces in the last 20 years, to see that computer skills are practically a necessity in order to put food on the table.
The book preaches. It does not present facts, but opinions - and one-sided interpretetions of fact. Read the footnotes and see that her sources are entirely undependable - and often out of print. Incorrect and irrelevant information eventually dies - it is sad commentary that this book saw a reprinting.
 Powerfully persuasive or totally histrionic? You be the judge. December 23, 2005
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
With 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.
An enlightening book on the silver screen May 8, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
While Winn's thought-provoking book focuses on the sociological harms TV can cause, it falls short in other areas, namely, the spiritual and neurological harms of TV. Another book, "Television: Prelude to Chaos" by Frank Poncelet, answered some of these questions I had after reading Winn's book. I also liked the hilarious cartoons throughout Winn's book that illustrate how silly it really is to wast your life away in front of the idiot box / boob tube / one-eyed monster.
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