No way. My husband is a huge TV addict. I don’t mind watching in bed every once in a while, but when we had one in our room, he would keep it on until 2 a.m. or so almost every night, even when he wasn’t really getting any entertainment value out of it. When we moved into the house we’re in now, the TV officially moved out of the bedroom.
We just have the one, located in the family room. We’re thinking about adding another downstairs in our finished basement for when we’re working out or when the kids want to watch cartoons and we don’t feel like watching cartoons with them, but so far haven’t felt a compelling enough need, though I imagine it will come as they get older and find us more annoying.
Like I said, I don’t mind having a TV in the bedroom, but I’m weird about entertainment value, especially late at night. If I’m knowingly keeping myself awake late when I have to get up early the next day (whether because of work or kids), I’d better be enjoying myself. If I’m not, and I feel like being awake for a while longer, it’s time to find something else to do. If I’m tired enough to sleep, I should be in bed.
We only have one TV, it’s in a back room we call the TV room, oddly enough. In general, we use the TV to watch a specific show and then turn it off. Rarely, do we just flip around the channels to see if anything is on.
I don’t. We had one when I was married and for me there were more cons than pros.
Even when my marriage was great watching TV together was unfun. My ex is an incorrigible flipper, an insomniac, and also has hearing loss. That’s when I first started sleeping with earplugs in.
I read some Oprah or feng shui gobbledy gook that said my bedroom should be a pod of serenity for sleep and soul nourishing activities only. There was something in there about sex, but by the time I read it I already wasn’t getting any so I didn’t bother remembering it. I got the TV out of my bedroom and try really hard not to take the laptop in there.
My wife and I have lived together for about 8 years and have never had a TV in our bedroom. We both prefer it that way; there’s one in the living room and that’s where we do all the watching.
We also have 2 kids and there’s no way we’re going to give them a TV in their room(s). Maybe in the den or other common area.
I’m actually a bit snobbish about it, which is unfortunate. I just view bedroom TVs as bad for sex, bad for sleep, and leading to too much TV watching in general.
On our dresser we have an old 13 inch TV/VCR combo. This is for when we both want to watch TV in bed.
Then, along the side (my side) of the bed I have a Sony Glasstron which I have hooked up to the digital cable box in our living room via a Leapfrog video transmitter and remote control extender.
This allows me to watch TV in bed without disturbing my wife with the sound or flicker.
Growing up with a 1940’s size TV that only occasionally got two channels, I still look at an actual working TV as a work of art and a blessing from God. They still excite me. But for a long time we only had the one, in the den. We marked the paper with our favorite shows. I used to screw my husband on Tuesday nights when there was nothing good on. (Plus the weekend, of course.)
When I first started getting sick, basically bedridden, I got a TV in my newly separate bedroom. Before we knew it they’d started cropping up in every room in the house like mushrooms. What fun to click the clicker in the kitchen and watch Oprah while heating soup! Passing from room to room, TVs on the same channel like stereo, never missing a beat…not heard of where I came from with what we had.
Background TV is white noise to me. I only noticed it when it was gone. But here lately I’ve been turning my TV off. Sometimes for 24 hours (or more) at a time. I live to read and since my stroke it takes a lot more concentration to do so. I’m way more interested in continuing the next chapter than watching “" outwit "” for the tenth time.
But don’t even try to take away my remote. My favorite shows are still going to be watched if it hairlips hell. I even set my alarm if necessary. Life trumps TV but if you ain’t bleeding, it can wait.
I don’t think it is, or has to be, snobbish. There is almost nothing good about television, no matter how high the quality of the content. Like chocolate, sleep and other indulgences, it has its place in the spectrum of how we choose to spend our time.
But when it becomes a waking-to-sleep addiction and we have to sprinkle screens in every room, including the bedroom, so that we can wake up to cheery morning shows and drift off to Letterman’s inanities, and snack on Oprah-wafers all day long… it’s somewhere between excessive and sick.
No TVs in bedrooms, not for us, not for the kids. We have three TVs and multiple smaller screens, but none of us are in the habit of watching anything on them while in bed.
I have a small TV in my bedroom, rarely use it. If I am having sleep problems, I’ll flip to a Sirius classical music channel and let the bouncing info and music lull me to the land of nod. As far as causing problems with my sex life - don’t have one of those so it’s moot.
Never since I left my parents’ house thirty-something years ago.
The only time I ever had one in the bedroom was when there was a handed down B&W portable in my bedroom where I grew up. I was older by then, probably about high school age. As a younger child TV times were pretty strictly regulated and the television was in the living room.
In my third/fourth apartments I went for about 5 years with no TV at all. (After I realized I had not turned on the TV for six months, I gave it to my landlady downstairs whose TV had died.) I didn’t get one again until the future Mrs. Frig moved into the next apartment.
Yes, however, I live in a studio apartment. I also have Apple TV so I often use it for music as well as listening to podcasts. I’m single and I work overnights so I go to sleep around 9-10 AM during the week.
No TV in my bedroom, no TVs in bedrooms at Middlebro-and-SiL’s house, no TV in Mom’s bedroom, no TV in Littlebro’s bedroom. M&S had one for about a year in her father’s bedroom, as he had ALS: he spent more and more time in bed and after a year of having him in the house, both M and S were pretty up-to-here of ancient Z-series westerns.
My grandmother’s bedroom opens directly into her living room, so in theory you can watch TV from her bed, but the last time anybody did that it was a single-figure-age grandchild who’d come down with the flu. The youngest grandchild is now in his mid-30s.
I have a TV in the bedroom, I often set the sleep timer and fall asleep with it on. I’d say yeah it probably did affect my sex life. It was easy to fall into the routine of flopping down into bed and watching something rather than getting frisky.
