The purpose of the Turnoff is to encourage a healthy break from TV and focus on activities that are more academically, socially and physically rewarding. Statistics about television in this country are alarming. The television is on for 6 hours and 47 minutes each day in the average household. Children spend an average of 4 hours daily watching TV, while studies estimate only 39 minutes each week are spent in meaningful conversation with parents. Television is a great tool which could be used in a good way or bad way.
Television has some great uses - educational, entertaining and informing.
Like anything else, it's all in how you use it. Television is a good thing, but the world would be better without so much of it. Groups like TV-Free America are getting people to do something about this seductive electronic box. Each week in April TVFA sponsors a National TV-Turnoff Week. The event, launched in 1995, has a growing list of supporters, including the American Medical Association.