Can your family go a week without computers?
Think your kids spend too much time online? The organizers of the first annual National PC-Turnoff Week hope families will soon learn to kick the habit.
Modeled after TV-Turnoff Week, PC-Turnoff Week runs Aug. 1 through Aug. 7 and is meant to raise awareness of the hazards of excessive computer use in the home.
Child-health experts are increasingly pointing to computers, along with televisions, as the culprits behind a national obesity epidemic among children. They also worry about the effect long hours at the computer may have on kids' social skills, grades and general well-being.
"There really need to be some limits set," said Joe Acunzo, co-founder of the PC-Turnoff Organization, the group behind the event, and father of a teenage "instant-messaging addict."
