Can you give up one week of tube time?

No matter what else you may have planned today, you'd best cancel all outings and plant your kids in front of the television.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, quoted in an Associated Press story, kids from third through 12th grade in this country spend more than six hours a day combined in front of television, video games or computers.

So with TV-Turnoff Week beginning Monday and running through next Sunday, there could be a nation of kids suffering withdrawal symptoms.

To avoid this, perhaps a binge today could keep them from aimlessness tomorrow - though I know few kids who could force themselves to spend a full Sunday in front of a video monitor of any kind.

If the survey is valid, then there are children out there who watch TV or sit at a computer from early morning long into the night, skipping school, chores, meals, showers etc., just to keep the national average at the six-hour mark.

Too many of the children I know are not doing their part, if I can believe the parents who tell me their kids engage in all sorts of survey-skewing activities such as shooting baskets or playing neighborhood games of football or practicing musical instruments or doing homework.

I mentioned the six-plus hours of television figure to my oldest son this week, and it pained him to even consider it. To reach that goal, he figured, he would have to come home from school at 3:30, sit down immediately in front of the television - no time to search for snacks before taking his spot on the couch - and stay there until bedtime.

Though he has a few favorite programs, averaging maybe one hour of viewing each day, I think he's already figured out that the main problem with television is - besides the fact that while watching it you are usually not exercising or reading and you are rarely thinking - it is just plain stupid.

I speak from experience as a survivor of the ultimate idiot years of television.

I spent many nights in the 1970s watching back-to-back shows with no redeeming social and artistic value. I had a youthful loyalty to programs like "Welcome Back Kotter," "The Love Boat," "Three's Company" and "Happy Days."

I spent many sick days home from school feeding my feverish brain with hours of "Family Feud," "The Price is Right" and "$10,000 Pyramid."

My parents should probably have been charged with neglect for letting me fill my head with so much inane "entertainment." But, at least in our day, cable and satellite dishes were yet to be the standard, so there were many hours of the day when there wasn't anything tempting to the average kid. Though I wasted countless hours, I don't believe I hit anywhere near that six-hour mark on a daily basis.

TV-Turnoff Week is only in its 11th year, so a week of television abstinence wasn't something to which we were ever driven.

But should you choose to participate in TV-Turnoff Week, the Web site www.tvturnoff.org is there for encouragement or ideas for filling those empty hours. There's also a rundown of television-viewing facts and figures.

For example, a feature that offers the more shameful aspects of American television viewing notes that 54 percent of 4- to 6-year-olds said they would rather watch TV than spend time with their fathers. (Whether mothers win out against the lure of those goofy "Barney" characters isn't addressed.)

So, if nothing else, TV-Turnoff Week is a special time parents can celebrate if their children are below average.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com