Screen-Free Week
Screen-Free Week is an annual event that traditionally takes place in May. Each year people from around the world make a conscious decision to turn off screens of all kinds for the week.

Screen-Free Week is an annual event that traditionally takes place in May. Each year people from around the world make a conscious decision to turn off screens of all kinds for the week.

Like it or not, if you use the Internet you have an online identity. Some people call this your "brand." What's a brand? Think about a brand of soft drink, or computer, or jeans, or a band or a sports team. You probably have a certain idea about each one – what it's like, who buys it, and so on.

Parents of young children need to actively manage and control TV viewing in the home. Children need a variety of activities for healthy development and television can be a fun and educational part of a child's daily routine, if managed properly.

Kids have always enjoyed watching movies, and as films have become available through more and more media this popular activity has come to play an increasingly influential role in their lives: nearly half of Canadian teens say that movies are their favorite entertainment medium. [1]

Representations of violence aren’t new. In fact, violence has been a key part of media since the birth of literature: Ancient Greek poetry and drama often portrayed murder, suicide and self-mutilation; many of Shakespeare’s plays revel in violence, torture, maiming, rape, revenge and psychological terror; and some of the most popular books of the 19th century were “penny dreadfuls” that delivered blood, gore and other shocks to the lowest common denominator.

No one knows better than the media industry that children and youth represent a huge market, due to both their own spending power and their influence on family spending decisions.

While parents may find certain representations of violence wholly appropriate for young people, there’s a wide continuum of content that exists online and in the media. Anything from a cartoon cat having an anvil comically dropped on his head to video images of real-life injuries and deaths can be accessed online by children and youth.