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

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.Preface
The Good-Enough Family
Note about the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

Part I. The Television Experience
1. It's NotWhatYou Watch
The Concerns
About the Contents and Susceptible Kids
What DoesNotHappen
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 StreetRevisited
The Echoes ofSesame 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
Losinl“W