First off, the author sets up a bunch of straw men to bash down in favor of his point, the most frustrating of which is:
> I watch truly quality TV shows. There are definitely the odd few of those but, if you must, download them and watch them on your computer: without ads and over a short period. At least in this instance you know what you’re subjecting yourself to and you will be doing it for entertainment: not in the background.
This is identical to me making a blog post saying: "Sell all your books: you're better off without them. Sure, you might miss out on some quality literature, but you can always just download them in pdf format and read them on your laptop."
Television is a medium. Every medium has its Two and a Half Men, and the luxury of the modern TV industry is that we have more freedom than ever to pursue programming we prefer. Making a big deal from divorcing yourself from a medium is fine -- of course you're going to have more free time, if I quit listening to music I'd probably have more free time as well -- but doing so with the caveat of 'oh, download some specific shows that you like' is shallow and unfair to the reader.
Exactly. What if I download shows and then watch them on my TV? What's the difference between sitting on my couch and watching it on my TV and sitting on my office chair and watching it on my smaller computer monitor? Also, I use a Roku box, so I don't watch shit with commercials anyway.
Agree. There are plenty of ways to free up more time to do more enriching things aside from selling the TV.
From the OP:
>> I’ve decided that in the future, wherever I am, it’d be better not to own a TV. It’ll save me the temptation and free up so much time.
For many people, cutting back on "connectedness" to the Internet would do the same. For some people, social media is a bigger time suck than the TV ever will be.
We threw out our TV 4 years ago. Haven't looked back. After Katrina, we lived with my parents in Texas, who had just moved into their new house. We convinced them to not turn on the TV, just because we were sick of the news. And then we decided it was good for our daughter. My dad finally broke down a few months later and started watching the History Channel. My daughter immediately sat down and we didn't notice any bad behavior. Until the TV was turned off. When she became a holy terror. We repeated that experiment every day for 3 years, and finally I came home from school one day and my wife put the TV out on the curb.
I'm convinced TV content and especially the heavily commericalized product on the airwaves, activates a huge amount of sympathetic tone. Thus the bizarre ability to stare at it intently, then the almost freakish let down experience when the tube goes off.
Life has been steadily getting better since. We eat healthier, spend more time with the kids, the kids do more, I've lost 30 lbs, etc, etc.
7 and 10 now. When we evacuated for Katrina: son was 6 mo and daughter was 3 yrs. First re-exposure to TV after that 4 month hiatus: right around her 4th birthday.
You could always print individual I frames onto a transparent substrate and shine a light through it to produce an image on a wall. Not sure what you would call it
Just as a counter point, I gave up TV a little over year ago and nothing changed. Granted, I saved some money on not needing a cable bill, which was nice, but it wasn't a life changing event. I don't feel like I suddenly gained more free time. It's true that I haven't missed it, but I also haven't missed the green pants I gave to Goodwill. I wouldn't tell you to get rid of your green pants if you're getting enjoyment from them.
So, on the one hand, I'll agree with the article. Get rid of your TV. It's not that important. On the other hand, if you feel like keeping it, do so. It's still not that important.
These are good points, but having gone without a tv for 8 months, there are downsides. There's really nothing that lets you relax without any mental input whatsoever like a TV. It's very effective at that. I found I was more stressed out without at least a tiny bit of TV in my life, albeit only movies and Battlefield 3 on it.
I think this guy means "cancel your old-school TV service". My TV is just a large display connected to a PS3.
I'm eliminating:
* scheduling my time around the broadcast schedule of (increasingly sparse) shows I want to watch
* going to (increasingly rare and distant) stores to rent movies
* going to (increasingly hostile) theaters
The only shows I really watch anymore are the Daily Show / Colbert report, and some HBO offerings(Game of Thrones / True Blood). I tend to catch them online, anyway. There's always Netflix if I really want to watch a movie. I get all my news from the internet.
I'm reluctant to throw mine away since I won two 23" TVs in raffles(i.e. I put in $5 into a hat). The only other use for it is for my Xbox 360, and I don't play video games nearly as much as I used to in college. Instead of watching a bunch of different shows, I happened to find more interesting hobbies to fill the void such as running and flying airplanes. When the weather is too poor to do either of those and no one's around to hang out, though? I'll put a game or a show on and relax.
When I moved into my current apartment a year ago, I made a conscious decision not to get cable. I've heard people say cable is the path of least resistance to ending boredom and in my experience that's true. Eliminating that path has caused me do other things to end my boredom such as reading a book, exercising, or working on a side project. I don't think it's a coincidence that this past year has been one of the most productive ones of my life.
I still have a TV and a Roku by the way, so I'm not totally disconnected. I still watch movies and shows I'm interested in. By not having cable though, I avoid the time sink of channel surfing and that's been huge for me.
tl;dr - I went to college, stopped watching "cable/satellite" TV and I haven't missed it one bit. Though I did keep my televison so I can watch good shows/movies and play games.
Before I left college I was one of those people who watched TV for hours a day, and porbably more than 4-5 hours/day. When I moved into my dorm room I remember being incredibly glad that cable was included in my housing fees because I wouldn't be able to live without it. Basically, what I realized is that the shows and movies I really wanted to watch never came on TV, so I ended up downloading them in HD, sans commercials, and I never missed normal TV one bit.
I'm at home for the summer right now, two years after quitting TV, and I'm trying to get my mom and brother to give it up too. Now I just think TV is damn annoying, mostly because of the commercials.
Side-note: I will be living with some hardcore sports fans next year and it seems to be near impossible to get decent sports coverage without Satellite or Cable.
When I moved into my current apartment, I decided not to buy a TV but to instead spend extra money that would have gone toward a TV on a nice large monitor.
This particular monitor lets you also watch TV on it (although I never make use of it; prefer watching digital content), it is possible to hook up video game systems, and I can play DVDs via my computer.
First off, the author sets up a bunch of straw men to bash down in favor of his point, the most frustrating of which is:
> I watch truly quality TV shows. There are definitely the odd few of those but, if you must, download them and watch them on your computer: without ads and over a short period. At least in this instance you know what you’re subjecting yourself to and you will be doing it for entertainment: not in the background.
This is identical to me making a blog post saying: "Sell all your books: you're better off without them. Sure, you might miss out on some quality literature, but you can always just download them in pdf format and read them on your laptop."
Television is a medium. Every medium has its Two and a Half Men, and the luxury of the modern TV industry is that we have more freedom than ever to pursue programming we prefer. Making a big deal from divorcing yourself from a medium is fine -- of course you're going to have more free time, if I quit listening to music I'd probably have more free time as well -- but doing so with the caveat of 'oh, download some specific shows that you like' is shallow and unfair to the reader.