It's really not that tough

Meh. It's really not that difficult. These are just day-to-day lifestyle choices, ones which I think many people over-dramatise.

I've gone through spells of watching more or less t.v. I lived the last year with a roommate who insisted we invest in a comprehensive Telus TV package, and watched a ton of movies & shows. Obviously I watched a bit more under these circumstances. The only time I really really overindulged was when I was quite sick for a couple of days - probably spent 8 hours a day watching! But that's okay, sometimes the mind needs to be numbed.

T.v. doesn't dominate my life. Some people watch a lot but really enjoy it. Good for them. The really big shift is to downloading entire series, or watching on DVD - some shows are much more enjoyable when one can watch consecutive episodes. The best part? NO ADS. Immediately makes the viewing experience better.

"reality" shows

Last night I happened to catch 10 minutes of So You Think You Can Dance (because my wife and daughter were in the living room and I wanted to have some interaction with them, even if it was only communal watching). Featured were two horribly inept "dancers" who were stunned when the critics panned them. This had followed breathless personal interviews where they opined that dancing "was their life" and their partner "was the best thing that ever happened to me", blah, blah, blah. It was too painful to watch, so I left the room, wondering how this puerile pap ever made it to broadcast pixels. Suffice it to say I loath reality shows, but confess an afinity for Rick Mercer and Jon Stewart.

Get rid of tv

We got rid of tv three years ago, and it was the best decision we ever made for our family. I have happier kids (currently age 8 motnhs to 8 years) and we all get so much more accomplished in the day. The kdis also get along better, because they spend more time together. The library became a weekly event too.

Hmmm....

I've lived without TV for decades now and have never missed any of it.

One thing-a child who hasn't been exposed to a lot of TV is a much calmer individual-the 'twitches' aren't there at all-I can often recognise such kids.

It'll be interesting to see how the parent responds to this challenge it'll take a lot of imagination, willpower and willingness to stand out from the crowd.

Then there's the internet....

tv teaches greed

Recently I had lunch with two friends who admitted they were addicted to television. My wife and I, I told them, had cancelled our cable service and given up watching any television except rented movies. We resented the time television sucked from our lives, even when watching documentaries and so-called quality drama. And I had always thought watching the news whilst eating dinner was a bizzare and unhealthy accompaniment to a meal, and it was even odder to watch news before bedtime.

Television, I told them, not only drained my soul, it poisoned my mind with feelings of inadequacy: the overarching message of commercials and programs being if I didn’t have such and such my life was incomplete. Propaganda masqueraded as news; thirty-second sound bites were the basis of our democratic discourse; and everyone wanted to be on tv, even if they were seen doing the most inane things. Stupidity became the norm: stupid people saying and doing stupid things to entertain a stupefied populace.

To watch television was to submit to the yoke of not one monolithic Big Brother but dozens, hundreds, of big brothers and sisters, public as well as private, whose agendas boiled down to numbers: the most viewers, the higher the ad revenues, the bigger the profits for the corporation which owned or controlled the station or network. It didn’t really matter what was being shown as long as it held our attention, and quality programs were simply a gloss on the same message: buy me. Buy me now.

My wife and I read in the evening. We go for walks in the neighbourhood. We do not bring iPods; we listen to the wind rustling the trees, to a baseball game in the park nearby, to birdsong, while songbirds are still with us. We feel more grounded, more in synch with the seasons, with each other.

Our exposure to tv now is the signals from the local stations and satellites passing through our bodies like neutrinos.

Occasionally I’ll look at the tv listings in the paper, bemused by the contradiction of three-digit channel numbers and the same old crap I once watched multiplied several times. The biggest sacrifice in giving up television was losing documentaries, but we found the best of them stocked at an independent video store. How can we miss what we don’t know we’re missing? And does missing the video of the latest middle east crisis make me less informed, when I can read about it online or in a newspaper?

Television isn’t inherently evil, but it’s effect on my brain was insidious. The flickering images induced a trance-like condition, an alpha state, in which my mind was receptive to whatever it was being fed. Quitting television was not only a healthy decision, and one that saved us hundreds of dollars in cable fees, but an act of defiance against a culture predicated on rampant consumerism.

Cable is expensive

I pay $52.00 to our cable TV provider for one months service. That's $624.00 for a year, and I'm not getting Internet service for this.
It's gross amount to pay.
I can get a lot more information from the Internet, including many popular commercial television programs, and it's getting better all the time.
The new NHL contract with the CBC, compels the broadcaster to offer the feed on streaming video, on their website.
I am not interested in much of the TV I pay for.
I may look to satellite or some other alternative.
But to simply say " I am going to stop TV viewing in my household " is very naive.
There is so much info out there, that it's a folly to cut our self off from the current fountain of knowledge.

advertising medium

mjscox Excellent commentary...yes T.V. is an advertising propaganda medium..the difference in the ambiance of homes of friends without tv was interesting. A calmness...kids reading, quietly practicing saxophone..books everywhere...the product of creativity very evident..a totally different world than tv world with that..buzz
not there.

"til the kids are out of school"

That was how my parents put it.
Most neighbours had the blue "buzz box" humming away in the late '50s Okanagan. How I dreamed that one day after school I would walk up the driveway and there would be a T.V. antennae newly installed.
That did not happen and as I came in to siring children I too deprived them access even as the Blue became colour.

But the question remains: Shut off the Joy box and what do you do?

It's worth a try (not that I do it) just go outside and sit and listen and watch

x

I agree wholeheartedly with all the comments above, especially mjscox. I'm 26 and haven't had a television since I was 20. I'm your average working stiff, but I just don't know when I would find the time. I'm not terribly busy either, so I don't understand how people make time to tune into their favorite shows all week- what else do they do?! I find television bizarre when I do tune in at a friend's house- the ads especially are so creepy, and yes, "insidious" as mjscox said. They, along with the general dramas/Friends-esque shows/reality tv definitely inspire feelings of inadequacy and often after a "vacation" visiting my folks at home, who are confirmed television addicts, I find myself suddenly feeling I want to be thinner, dye my hair, get better clothing, get new shoes, have more parties, etc etc. I could probably stand to indulge in some of that, but wow does TV ever make you feel horrible about yourself.

Another thing I dislike is when watching TV together counts as family time. I go home to visit my parents, and want to have quality conversations wth them. Instead, we are reduced to channel-surfing machines, constantly patrolling for the next "interesting" program, and hushed if we try to talk during C.S.I. After it's all said and done, has TV improved you as a person? I know birdwatching, cycling, exercising, reading, and playing with animals certainly has, all alternatives to TV!

Now I will divulge that I love love love nature documentaries and am collecting David Attenborough's documentaries, Blue Planet, etc on DVD- far better to watch it this way, make it an event to gather round for rather than a happy accident to stumble upon a half-finished documentary. I don't even physically have a television, but the computer monitor turns around to the couch so it's no problem. Now, I've lived 6 years without a microwave, car, cell-phone, or television... any bets on what I'll bend on first? ;) I am not missing anything, that much I am sure of.

Want culture? Try radio

We have given up the tube twice over the past couple decades, this last stretch has been about four years.
When I say given up the tube I mean cable TV, we still watch rented movies.......I love a great suspense thriller.
Our son is now 14 years old and, believe it or not, does not ask for all the latest and greatest 'must have'.

TV Free 2

One of the most interesting things about combining homeschooling with no television is that your kids will have no clue at all what the prize is with a Happy Meal this month.

That alone makes it well worthwhile.

TV is not a positive force

There was a very significant book published in the late 1970s called “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” by Jerry Mander (a former advertising executive). It is worth reading and will give you more reasons to justify not watching television.

http://www.amazon.com/Arguments-Elimination-Television-Jerry-Mander/dp/0688082742

http://www.eco-action.org/dt/elimtv.html

I know many families like us with young children who simply stopped their cable service. However, DVD and tape based children’s programming can also be over-viewed. And don’t forget Walt Disney’s predilection to scare kids out of their wits, and everyone in Hollywood copies that story structure. Ken Eisner of the Georgia Straight once used the term ‘psychic horror’ when reviewing a Disney animated film.

The only reason I know what is happening on television these days is because popular shows are deemed news-worthy. One thing that amazes me about the Internet is the explosion of gossip and celebrity obsession

Network television is in big trouble as their audience is eroded by digital cable and satellite specialty channels, the Internet, and computer gaming. The push for reality TV and the Idol series is all about viewership for the mainline networks to survive. A friend at CBC tells me radio is in good shape, but it looks bleak for CBC TV.

In our house, we see “screen time” as the same, regardless of whether it is TV or a computer game. Ultimately, what concerns me is the business forces that want to convince us and our children that we must consume a constant stream of ‘content’ from our phones, our laptops, our computer monitors and out televisions.