I once unplugged the TV for a month. It was summer, the season of long walks, barbecues ... and reruns. But if I really wanted to prove I could break free from evening sessions of tube-induced passivity, I'd have to make it through a New England winter. In the darkest, coldest months, I would no longer be able to escape to the passionate politics of "The West Wing" or the passion-fruit pablum of "reality" dating.
This winter, I had my test.
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A year ago I moved into my own place, just a few minutes' drive from my former roommate - and her television. Friends offered me a spare, but I declined. Living alone was an opportunity to choose deliberately how I wanted to live. And I had a hunch that being TV-free would help me leap into all those things I wanted to do but didn't seem to have time for. I offer my story in honor of TV-Turnoff Week. Millions of people in the United States and 10 other countries are celebrating it April 25-May 1, according to the TV-Turnoff Network, which promotes alternatives to excessive screen time.