DOWNTOWN Jodie Tannen has an addiction. The Santa Monica resident’s drug of choice — anything and everything on television.
The 24-year-old receptionist can’t seem to function without fixes of “Sex and the City” reruns, new episodes of “Lost,” and her favorite, “American Idol.”
“It’s kind of crazy how much time I spend watching TV,” she said Friday as she left a Downtown restaurant with co-workers. “I’d say I spend about four hours a night during the week catching up on my shows. Thank God for (digital video recorders). Now I can watch anything I want, whenever I want.”
Tannen thought purchasing TiVo would help ween her off television, but it has done the opposite. Now she finds herself watching more programming, even shows she would-n’t have considered watching before, but now that she can record them and watch them at her leisure, why not?
“I guess it’s gotten a little out of hand,” she said with a smile, somewhat embarrassed that her viewing habits were exposed. “Maybe I should tone it down.”
She’ll have a chance to do so next month when millions of Americans will be asked to turn off their televisions for seven days as part of the 14th Annual TV Tuneoff Week, sponsored by the Center for Screentime Awareness, a nonprofit out of Washington, D.C. that tries to get people to give up the boob tube and spend more time with their families and friends outside of the house.
Robert Kesten, executive director of the center, was in Santa Monica and Los Angeles this week to organize participants into Media Impact Task Forces that will work to promote alternatives to the screen, foster stronger relationships with family and encourage healthy lifestyle changes, including universal screen time reduction. Kesten chose Santa Monica and Los Angeles because this is “the belly of the beast,” where television programming is determined.
“The technology is controlling us. We’re not controlling it,” Kesten said during an interview at the Daily Press earlier in the week.“For humans to be healthy, we need to be active physically and mentally. We are seeing more and more society not engaging in real time, but instead people are living on rewind, which is leading to more cases of mental illness and obesity.”
In airports, doctors’ offices, supermarkets and almost every place else one can think of, there are screens reporting the tragedies taking place around the world and around the corner. All this leads to greater stress, leading more people to find happiness in alternative worlds, Kesten said, living vicariously through avatars and celebrities, rather than find themselves subjected to the pressures of the real world.
The popularity of digital video recorders has opened the door for children to be exposed to more adult material. While pro-gramming ensures that certain subject matter is not discussed on television before a certain time, with DVRs, kids can access inappropriate material whenever they chose by looking at the programs their parents or older siblings have recorded.
“I agree that we are probably watching too much television,” said Greg Young, a Los Angeles resident who was shopping along the Third Street Promenade Friday. “We watch quite a bit of TV. I would say at least 10 hours a week or more … It seems TV is everywhere now. We have it on our cell phones, in waiting rooms, on buses. It’s easy to get addicted.”
Representatives with the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable & Telecommunication Association did not return calls for comment.
Tuneoff Week is April 21-28. For more information, go to www.tvturnoff.org.
“There are a wide array of things for people to do during the week and we encourage cities to organize activities,” Kesten said. “The important thing is to turn the TV off and get active.” Chiara Canzi contributed to this report.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 29, 2008. Read the original PDF.