Get a Life!: The Little Red Book of the White Dot - Softcover

Burke, David; Lotus, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747536899 ISBN 13: 9780747536895

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1998

Synopsis

The authors of this book argue that television has always exemplified what is cheap and dehumanizing about modern life. Founders of the White Dot organization in the UK and USA, they claim that people spend too much time staring at the TV which is simply just another piece of furniture. This book is designed as a self-help guide to switching off the television and "getting a life".

About this title

Review

Get A Life is the manifesto of the Anti-TV organisation White Dot. The Guardian newspaper described the book as "the finest rant available between hardcovers." It is a wonderful, funny and acerbic attack on what has become a ubiquitous "activity"--on average most adults spend four hours of every day staring at a piece of furniture! The people on TV are not our friends! "Television doesn't give you experiences--it takes them away from you!" With our lives dominated ever more by outside influences beyond our control, White Dot thinks it absurd and ultimately dangerous for human beings as human beings to spend most of our "leisure" time staring at a screen and not communicating with each other.

There is a wonderful utopian edge to White Dot's opprobrium as they debunk the notion that TV is educational, relaxing, gives parents some peace, that giving it up is extreme and that life without it is boring. TV is not just another medium: "Previous forms of media led to the advancement of culture, intelligence and civilisation. Many people would say that television has done the opposite." We have done just fine for thousands of years without TV and this book reminds us that it is pretty daft wasting the one life we do get having surrogate interactions with a screen. Stop watching start living! --Mark Thwaite

From the Author

Find out more about the White Dot anti-television campaign
The authors run White Dot, an anti-television campaign running in the US and Britain. Although there are similar campaigns in France, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. To find out more, or get involved, visit the White Dot website.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747536899
• ISBN 13: 9780747536895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224