Television

[Credo in Deum]

Hello Pham,

Anyone here ever had a problem with watching too much television?  Anyone give up T.V. all together or gradually reduce the amount of T.V. they watched until not watching it anymore?  Anyone have any good tips on ways you've reduced the amount of television you've watched? Maybe rules you have made regarding watching television?  Those of you who have removed it from your personal lives, what have been the positive changes which have come from this decision?   @LuigiI'm looking at you, buddy.  

Edited November 23, 2015 by Credo in Deum

[Gabriela]

I don't know that I ever watched too much. I did watch a lot more back in the day than I do now. I got rid of my television set in 2001 and haven't had one since. I do watch stuff on YouTube and Netflix, but with my schedule, that's not often, and I pretty much only watch when I'm already braindead and can't do anything else. (I have a very intellectually demanding job.)

I removed television so long ago that I honestly don't remember what it's like to have one. I remember people being shocked and awed when I told them I didn't have one. I still get that sometimes, but these days, so many Millennials just watch tv online that it's not so shocking anymore. I have on various occasions seriously considered cutting off my internet connection at home, and I would actually really love to do that. I think my life would be a lot calmer and slower, more manageable. But I really don't have the kind of job that allows that.

Mostly I think that removing tv from my life removed me from the cycle of brainwashing that comes with extensive mass media exposure. Now I hear how other people talk about things that are going on, and I'm a much more critical consumer of that, because I haven't been inundated with it like they have. I still can't watch sitcoms to this day, because they're just so fake and cheesy. After about 6 months without tv, when I happened to see it again, it seemed incredibly stupid. So what I watch online now isn't at all what I watched back then. Back then, I'd watch whatever came on. Now, I'm very picky, and the stuff I watch tends to be more educational or "classy" (like BBC dramas).

One does find a lot more time for other things when one doesn't have a tv. At first one wonders what the hell else there is to do, but after a few weeks, one takes up all kinds of new things and life is much more varied. Overall, I'm very glad I did it. I've never regretted it for a second. (I've even kicked out boyfriends who brought televisions into my house.) Now I just wish I could cut off my internet... Hopefully some day I'll have a job that allows that.

[blazeingstar]

I've never owned a TV.  I own one now, sort of, in a what's his is mine sort of way.  But I've never paid for aTV service.

I will watch some Amazon Prime movies or stream things now and then.  I do follow a couple of youtubers.  But for the most part I use audio books if I need some plot-based noise.  Honestly, there are some sitcoms I like, but the commercials are abhorrent.  Right now, "The Middle" and "Last Man Standing" are two decent TV shows.  Free on Hulu if you wait a week.

I was a child in a house that was 24/7 TV.  It was on before I got up and on long after I'd gone to bed.  There was a TV viewable from almost every room in the house.  It permimiated my existence.

I don't miss the constant commercialism.  Right now, even with adblocker, the internet brings more ads into my world than I'd care for.  I probably have more time to do things, but honestly, I'm so busy with that stuff that other than the 2x a week my hubby and I extend dinner for a 22minute sit com, there just isn't time.

Socially it's a back-breaker, tho.  My co workers watch SO MUCH television.  They talk about it all.the.time.  They seem to bond over it in a way which seems really weird.  Many of the jokes are ala Breaking Bad or Walking Dead or that twilight knockoff or even Downtown Abby and especially sports.  They are all non-traditional TV watchers (except sports), too, but they often are pretty fanatical about watching the newest episode. To them, my not having a TV means I basically don't exist.  Note, it's my existence that gets pushed off as not really living.  It's surreal.

Edited November 23, 2015 by blazeingstar

[vee]

 watch only foreign language channels. 

[Credo in Deum]

Thank you, Gabriela and Blazeingstar.   I have my television hooked up to a bluray player which streams netflix, amazon prime, youtube, and etc.  I don't have cable, but I find it has become too easy to binge watch on shows. For me the television has become a crutch since I have become, more or less, a shut-in due to illness and other circumstances like taking care of my mother who is also ill, so t.v. is a way for me to zone out.  There is a part of me that is afraid to get rid of the t.v. because I'm lonley and then I will just have nothing else, but I've been praying to push past this fear since we are here for union with God and not union with t.v.  I feel like removing t.v. will help me confront the root of my problems so I can hand them over to God.  A way to be closer to Him, rather than offering my emotions to my t.v.   

 

[CatherineM]

I watch documentaries on YouTube on my laptop right before bed. My husband goes to sleep before I do. We have a lot of discs to watch, but rarely the time anymore. When people talk about shows on Facebook I have no idea what they are talking about. My one exception is Murdoch Mysteries. I'm a steampunk fan, and always watch it. 

[little2add]

i like the news, most      cant stand sports/ball games of any kind

 

[bardegaulois]

I don't own a television, and I haven't since I was a teenager. I was rather turned against it by the sheer volume of television that my parents watched when I was younger, which stunted, I believe, much of their empathy and their intelligence. Interestingly, I've almost never had the desire to sit in front of a television after a day of work, and anytime I've tried lately has been rather tedious for me. There's too much else to do: read (whether a book or online), write, take a walk, reconnect with friends, etc. Television is simply too much insubstantial brain fog to me.

The only exception to this is that while I'm house-sitting or visiting I might watch a baseball game, merely because I have the opportunity and I enjoy baseball. This generally happens only once or twice a year except when my beloved Red Sox are in the playoffs, in which case I might visit a friend or make my way down to the tavern to watch it. Usually, though, I'll just listen to the game on the radio.

[little2add]

 You should watch the news once in a while and keep up on current events 

[Not The Philosopher]

I think that when you're trying to remove something from your routine, it's worth recognizing that you're creating a void, and if you don't fill that void with something it becomes easier to slide back into old habits. You should be concrete, not just about whatever rules you're creating, but also how you're going to fill the extra time you're creating for yourself. Confronting the roots of problems in your life and being more reflective is a good thing, but it's also kinda nebulous. Spend more time in prayer, but maybe also consider taking up a creative hobby that you can do indoors? Writing, drawing, knitting, etc.

Take this with a grain of salt, because I'm pretty haphazard at reining in my own bad habits myself.

[bardegaulois]

6 minutes ago, little2add said:

 You should watch the news once in a while and keep up on current events 

I don't know to whom this comment was addressed, but with newspapers and Internet and the general decline in quality of television news, what's the point any longer? I have thousands of news sources potentially at my fingertips and I'm able to fiddler out all the celebrity gossip and news of the weird and panic-mongering and the like. Indeed, I find myself spending at least a half an hour daily reading about national and international affairs, and can stay current on local matters by a brief reading of my local paper and the reports of my many contacts. Television scarcely even crosses my horizon as a source of news any longer.

[elizabeth09]

I tried to watch tv when my siblings are out of the house, which is not very often.  But when I do, it is some show off of Netflix or a DVD that I want to watch.  Other then that, it is my younger siblings who watch the most tv.

[Luigi]

Credo - 

I guess you could say I had something of a 'conversion experience' against television one night. I realized that I was sitting on the living room floor for quite a long time, just watching colored dots on a piece of glass, getting all wrought up about pretend people. It wasn't an I'm-mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore moment, it was more like how-stupid-am-I-to-be-wasting-my-time-with-this-waste-of-time kind of moment. So I just got less and less interested in more and more shows. 

TV news is pointless - it's incorrect (I work in Ferguson, MO - 98.75% of what you heard on television was just plain wrong), there are a whole lot of important stories that TV just doesn't cover, the anchors engage in this forced falsely friendly banter, which reduces the amount of time for actual news, and on and on and on. I get better information by checking several websites (including this one, BTW). Sporting events are more-commercials-than-sports. I listen to baseball on the radio, but I turn down the sound at the commercial breaks.

For relaxation, I listen to music instead of watching television. And as other posters have mentioned, you do want some other activity to fill the TV-watching void. Especially if you think you'll be lonely. 

Television viewing is passive; viewers absorb what comes at them, most often without stopping to analyze it (i.e, apply critical thinking). If you're reading, you can pause whenever you want to, consider what you've just read, and resume exactly where you stopped. But with television, that's much more difficult - the steady stream of two-sensory input makes it difficult to stop and think. 

Advantages: I get more stuff done around the house - I turn on some music and start a project. I don't have my ears and mind filled with hyper-excited people trying to sell me things I neither want nor need. I don't participate in the national circus called The Media - as I scan through AOL headlines these days, I don't even know who most of those high-fashion fools are, so I don't care whether they test HIV positive or not, or whether they have a new significant other (they're not significant to me), or who is divorcing whom or why. Nowadays, I find the prospect of American television just plain stupefying. 

Anyway, there's an organization that promotes turning off your television for a week for National TV Turnoff Week. The organized week is over for this year, but here's a link to this year's flier. You might want to try a just one week without television first. I wouldn't want you to get the shakes or the DT's or something.   http://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us/cms/lib5/CA01000508/Centricity/Domain/2206/TV-Free%20Flier.pdf

Personally, I had stopped watching television before I discovered TV Turnoff Week. 

BTW, you'll never get completely away from television. It's in the bars, it's on in the Red Cross office when I donate blood or platelets, it's on at other people's houses when I go to visit. 

Best of luck with it!

[marigold]

6 hours ago, Credo in Deum said:

Thank you, Gabriela and Blazeingstar.   I have my television hooked up to a bluray player which streams netflix, amazon prime, youtube, and etc.  I don't have cable, but I find it has become too easy to binge watch on shows. For me the television has become a crutch since I have become, more or less, a shut-in due to illness and other circumstances like taking care of my mother who is also ill, so t.v. is a way for me to zone out.  There is a part of me that is afraid to get rid of the t.v. because I'm lonley and then I will just have nothing else, but I've been praying to push past this fear since we are here for union with God and not union with t.v.  I feel like removing t.v. will help me confront the root of my problems so I can hand them over to God.  A way to be closer to Him, rather than offering my emotions to my t.v.   

 

There have been certain times of life, like when I was working with very small children, or when I was unemployed, and I've relied on TV/internet and felt The Fear. It's real.

[MarysLittleFlower]

I used to watch a lot of TV... Then my family got rid of cable, and when I moved I didn't have a TV anymore. Today I don't have a TV or the internet at home, only on my phone. So I stopped watching TV at all, and the only thing I watch is an an occasional movie about a Saint on DVD - like once every two weeks to a month, on my laptop. I've realised its really helped not having TV. I have more time to pray. I feel less influenced by the world and its views - I care about them less. I'm sad I wasted so much time on TV before when time is a gift from God that we have to answer for :(  I also got rid of social media. I don't miss it at all now. I think you just get used to not having it and spend time doing other things, praying, reading, hobbies, etc.