No Media for 24 Hours

This Saturday, September 25th, Nickelodeon goes dark for a day to encourage kids to go out and play!

(Hey, that rhymes. Will they play in the hay? How long will they stay? Until May? I digress.)

I love the idea. It reminds me of an early Simpsons episode where the power went out in Springfield. All the TV’s went dark in every household and we heard kids moan in disappointment. Then they slowly got up, opened the front door to their houses, stretched their arms, squinting in the light of the sun like someone who hasn’t seen light for weeks. Next scene we saw kids playing on playgrounds, climbing trees, making forts… Great scene.

Nick is trying to get kids to do much of this. Their Worldwide Day of Play website has all kinds of ideas of activities that kids can do for the day.

As much as I love Nick’s efforts, I don’t know how much of an impact they will make by themselves (this is their 7th year in a row doing this). I wish that they could get Cartoon Network, Disney, MTV and other channels kids frequent- all to own in on this (not that kids couldn’t just go play X-box).

Parents should use this as an opportunity to make this family-driven. Wouldn’t it be cool if families “shut off the power” and turned off all mobile devices for a day?

Last year our church had a 1 month media fast. I know… it sounds nuts. But it was truly amazing. We cut all entertainment media for 1 month. Families brought out old board games, went on walks, hikes… you name it. Our family moaned and whined the first week. But after the month was over, we talked about implementing the media fast as a regular event one day a week– Tuesdays. (It’s been pretty irregular- with homework and jobs, many nights have been without media lately).

Props to Nick!

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