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FAQ »

There are as many ways to celebrate TV Turnoff Week as there are people celebrating it. Here are some launching points to get you started:

1. Take the personal plunge:

Don’t think you’re addicted to “screen time” spent with your TV, game console, or video iPod? Then why not prove it by going cold turkey for a week? You’d be surprised how difficult it can be to disconnect – and what a profound week of self discovery it can be. If you want to up the ante, include your email, cell phone, and PDA in the embargo.

2. Challenge your friends and family:

Since your personal ban is bound to affect the people you live with and spend time with anyway, go ahead and turn the week into a friendly competition. Find out who can last the longest with the fewest electronic lifelines? Or, even better, find out what can happen when you and your friends aren't sitting in the dark staring at a glowing box.

3. Take it to the classroom:

Students and teachers all across the world have been taking part in the big switch off for years. This year, whether you’re a teacher or a student, why not get your school to join them?  It’s great for communal spirit, and it’s an excellent opportunity to introduce media literacy skills to the classroom.

4. Hone your activist edge:

You don’t have to stay at home and keep your sofa warm until the TV is turned back on. Make TV Turnoff Week a tube-smashing success with some unscripted activism: poster, dream up some street theater, start a web campaign, or team up and go on a TV-B-GONE pub crawl.

5. Help reveal the bigger picture:

Every person who takes part in TV Turnoff, in their own small way, is taking a stand against an overly commercialized media system that shuts out the voices of regular people, and yet dominates the lives of all citizens – what amounts to the denial of a basic human right to public communication. Want to find out more about the damage that media concentration does to each of our lives, and to democracy as a whole? Help us expose the corporate gatekeepers that are shutting your out of the public airwaves.