i'm french. i was born in 1980 and my parents didn't have any tv.
i remenber, after school, i went back at home and had a small snack. i worked for a very short time and then went out : playing with my neighboors, my sister or alone (i created imaginary worlds and friends and stories that i shared next with my real friends).
In the evening, my parents called me to come back home. i helped them to set the table and then we shared a dinner, talking about what we did during the day, at school for me and at work for them. we talked about many things.
sometimes we played to board games or watch pictures or slides (on a slide projector). during the week end, we organised small outdoor games with friends or picnics. i played a lot with my sister, like role playing or football-rugby game (we created that!). i also read a lot (and i still do ot!) particularly before to sleep.
i can remenber people outside in the evening. i grew up in a small village in Provence. i played and ran my bike and walked in the whole village alone (i mean without any adults) because everybody was outside and knew me and my family and could protect me in case...
it was peacefull and exciting (to meet friends and play for hours!).
i don't want to look backward everytime but i really think tv is breaking many things in our societies and avoid people to think by themselves, to communicate all together. and a lot of problems come from tv.
and we could live better without tv. we could live without tv. that's all. sorry for my english. and thanks for the website!

Laure from Rocbaron, France

My grandfather worked when he was a child. He was a farmer. The most fun thing he talks about was using sod to block the creek & then swimming in the pond they made. Life is just a lot different now.

I think you should also have a current-generation archive and split these stories between it. I have friends with kids & no TV, and they read books all the time, the way I did when I was young. But it does take a lot more parenting time. The parents have decided it is worth giving up some of their own hobbies, and also worth having grandparents around a lot.

Joanna from Illinois

I'm still 22 and I'm raised in a family with TV. I'm the only family member who doesn't watch TV for more than 2 hours a week. I don't know how did I become like that since my parents are avid TV watchers. but I'm glad because that way I can do a lot of things I enjoy.

I read a lot, I still do snail mail correspondence and stamps collecting, I learned crochet by myself, cross stitch, creative writing, playing with my own minds - making up silly theories and exploring anything that can be hidden in my own mind, stargazing, watching people quietly from the bench outside, listening to good music they never play on TV... so much fun, and those activities certainly require no TV.

I don't need TV, and my future child will be a lucky one to be raised in a small TV-free family.

Fei Rose from Indonesia

My dad was a headteacher and he also played the fiddle. One of my earliest memories was seeing him play on the Sooty show. It was most probably 1953. I can remember we walked up to Mrs Francis's house, she was a dinner lady at our school to see dad on television as we didn't have one. It was really exciting seeing my dad on television and I can remember lots of balloons falling down as he played at the end of the show. Walking home I asked mam, "Does Mrs Francis earn more than dad?" Mam said, "No. Dad earns more than Mrs Francis." Me, "Why don't we have a television?" I think we eventually got on in 1956.

Mari from Brighton, UK

Like M., I'm under 30. Still I've noticed a marked change from my younger days.

Back when I was a kid, I played basketball with the other kids in the neighborhood or we'd have street hockey in the driveway. I was on a local kids' soccer team and practiced three nights a week. If I didn't want to play, I'd still go outside and sit a little on the porch, reading.

I also loved listening to rebroadcasts of old radio plays, and occasionally some newer fare. I liked "Fibber McGee and Molly", "Inner Sanctum", "The Shadow", tending to appreciate the mysteries and horror stories a little more than the comedies. They also ran then-almost contemporary series like "Nightfall".

All this early reading and listening to radio plays left me with a well-developed visual imagination. Sometimes it was too well developed. I felt faint reading the story of the death of Old Dan the hunting dog in "Where the Red Fern Grows". Very embarrassing for me, since I was reading it out loud in class! But this problem aside, so many boys and girls, even young people in their early twenties, lack an ability to conceive of an image they haven't already seen on television.

It amazes me how much people in fairly safe suburban neighborhoods have convinced themselves that they're fundamentally unsafe and it's better to leave the children outside, stifling on Nintendo and television, rather than "risk" letting them go outside to find their own entertainment. I grew up in the heart of a large city, in a working class neighborhood, and we never had the fear I see in people from gated communities far to the east and north of San Diego.

So while television is part of the problem, we also need to convince fairly well-to-do parents to stop hovering over their children out of fear and possessiveness. For good measure, have them tune into the occasional tinny-sounding old radio play if they can find one: it's good for the mind.

Kevin from San Diego