Do you mean the bounding box or the edges? You can turn either off.

Hide edges = Command + H
Hide bounding box = Shift+ Command+ B

(on pc's, substitute CTRL for Command)

Anything having to do with how you view the artboard or objects is found under the View menu.

I think I know what you are talking about and yes it is a nuisance.

To prevent it, first open the layers palette.
The open to the fly menu on the palette. Just click once on the small black triangle in the upper right corner of the pallette. in the fly menu that appears go to the bottom and click on palette options.
In the palette options dialog box, click on the 'Show Layers Only Option'.

You'll notice in your layers palette that the little black traiange in each of the layers has disappeared. This should mean hat now all the sub-layer are hidden. So the group editing feature should be disabledas well.. If you need to access them again Just go back to the palette option box and unclick the 'show layers only' feature.