My wife and I are moving very soon and we are trying to make the move a little more symbolic than just hauling all our gear to another house/town/state. We are trying to simplify our lives and live a more mindful enjoyable existence. Sure.
We are not going to give up cable internet…just cable tv. We will miss certain things like National Geographic Channel, Discovery, HGTV, Science Channel but we can get anything we need from the internet.
Things we won’t miss include: The news, hearing about every stabbing, car accident, terrorist attack, war etc…etc…
In all we will do a lot more reading, spending time together, and reduce the overall amount of electronic stress we get from tv.
Has anyone else done this? How do you like it? Has it effected your life positively?
I’ve never had cable TV apart from a one year stint when we had Wow Wow which is a rather lame Japanese company which at the time offered a whopping two channels! It was fun because there was a bit of English language TV on and movies were not dubbed which every bloody movie on terrestrial TV was at the time.
We also simplified our lives and though I missed it for a while I did get used to it very quickly.
One thing that is comparable is that when we go back to the UK to visit family for a month, up till last summer I had no computer access at all. Last summer my Dad had a computer at last but was so nervous about my using it that he sat at my elbow and breathed on me literally flinching or panicking if I opened anything he didn’t recognise and demanding that I go offline once I’d found any page I wanted to read. Sigh. I gave that up pdq…
I have actually always enjoyed going from totally computer and internet orientated life for a one month “detox” and it is AMAZING how quickly you stop missing it at all. Or maybe I am very shallow!
No, thou shalt be the first in history. Voyage on o brave traveller.
Seriously though. We live in a foreign country and don’t bother with TV at all. What we have done is bring a load of highly recommended DVDs (mainly series) and we’re working our way through those. Means we watch a hell of a lot less crap.
We also watch less in general. One episode of something, if that, a night. We do spend more time talking, reading etc.
Yep. Dropped my cable TV+internet+phone to just the internet a few months back.
Quite honestly, I thought I couldn’t live without TV, but it turns out it ain’t that hard. It’s probably easier now than it ever used to be, though, now that everyone’s putting their shows online. For instance, Hulu.com offers a lot of popular shows for free. You still get commercial breaks, but it’s only one 15-30 second commercial per break, and you can pause the show at any time. It’s like TiVo without worrying about setting it to record or running out of storage. Many networks put their shows up on their own websites as well.
Obviously, if you’re trying to remove the influence of TV from your life, that last paragraph won’t help you. But it makes it much easier to resist, because there’s not as much opportunity for channel-flipping and staying glued to the screen for hours on end. (Although I have to say, even when I had TV I didn’t have to deal with the news, because I never turned to those channels.)
To put it simply, it can be done, and with less of an effort than giving up your favorite food. If you ever have a specific show you must watch, you can probably get it online. Legally, even.
We live in an up-to-the-minute society who gets it’s information in nano-seconds. I’d love to see a study on child development in the 21st century and how it compares to the 80’s or before. I’d imagine children are getting smarter quicker in the information age.
I witnessed an interesting phenomenon a few weeks ago. We had some friends over for dinner [both physicists] and they do not have TV at home. We had our TV on and it was amazing to watch them get caught up during our conversation in what was on TV. They laughed saying that whenever they are in front of a TV they immediately get transfixed because they are not used to being infront of the tube. It was amusing yet at the same time quite interesting.
With a DVD player and a high-speed internet connection, who needs cable? I’ve done without cable TV for 5 years now (though I did have satellite when I visited home during college) and I don’t miss a thing. Between DVDs and Bittorrent, I’m not missing much that I care about, and I can watch it whenever I want to boot.
No cable. I’ve lived here 8 years now. Of those 8 years, we’ve probably had cable TV for a total of about 4 years intermittently. We’d turn it on for a few months, realize we never watched it, cancel it, turn it on (mainly to watch Sopranos), cancel it. Over and over.
We had it turned on most recently about a year and a half ago when we bought a new HDTV. And even then, we mostly didn’t watch it. Canceled it again about 6 months ago. Don’t miss it at all.
We had cable briefly back in 1988, and dropped it. Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on, yanno? And 20 years later, my mom has cable and when I go over to her house, it’s still…fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on. My son has cable in his apartment, and it’s…fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on. He plays WoW instead.
I find that the Internet and the occasional movie from Netflix or Family Video supplies all my entertainment needs.
Oh, and, books. The librarians flinch when they see me coming with my beach bag full of books.
So, the Internet, and books. No cable. Very happy.
I haven’t had cable since 2001 and I don’t miss it much. In the midst of my self-congratulation, though, I must admit that the truth of the matter is that my acquisition of a broadband connection simply catalyzed an exchange of one time-waster for another.
Now when I happen to see TV (like at my mother’s house, a TV addict) I’m overwhelmed by the high ratio of advertising-to-content, and how much of the content seems to be either stealth advertising or political propaganda. Who are these unfortunate people who have no other choice but to sit through this dreck? Was that me, a long time ago?
I do miss the prime-time cable series that everyone talks about (Sopranos, Weeds, etc) but I just cannot pay those obscene cable prices to get stuff I can just order off Netflix 12 months later.
Yes, I gave up the cable about ten minutes after I gave up the ex-husband. It was heaven. The kids weren’t so crazy about it, but they could always watch videos.
I have cable again now because my current husband loves TV. If he were to die today, I’d cancel the cable tomorrow. (Need a little time to get over the shock first.)
I too have a tendency to get drawn to the TV. That’s why I dislike it. I won’t go to restaurants that have TVs in them if I can help it.
It was quite funny…they are good friends of ours and they are the cutest couple. They are intelligent folks, but when it comes to regular everyday things they simply can’t be bothered. Turn a TV on in front of them and they melt like butter. It’s become a running joke when we see them.
My stbx wife was the type that had the TV on 24/7. She even had to sleep with it on. I think we spent more than a hundred bucks a month on cable. The remote was less than a year old, and most of the buttons were worn off.
When I moved in to my new place a month ago, I plugged in the TV (which my Dad insisted I take), hooked up the HD converter (which my Dad insisted I take), made sure it worked, and turned it off.
I haven’t turned it on since.
ETA: I’m thinking about pitching it. I live within walking distance of a sweet art-house theater for when I get a jones to watch a movie, and that corner of my living room would be perfect for an easy chair and reading lamp.
I got rid of cable/dish circa 1999. I haven’t missed it one iota. I watch dvds of series like Sopranos, Weeds, Lost, etc. I actually prefer watching an entire season over the course of a day or two.
One thing I notice is that if I am in a bar I find myself watching the commercials.
No cable, no satellite. I had cable once for a couple of months back in 1991; it was crap (both the content and the service). In this location, cable isn’t even available, satellite would require clearing some trees - not gonna happen. I can usually pick up ABC, PBS, CW, and KNLC24 (the local evangelist station), but not CBS, NBC or Fox. But I have a VCR and a DVD player. Frankly, I never really feel like I’m missing anything worth watching; I don’t even watch the stations I *can *get all that much. I’ve thought about subscribing to Netflix, but I read about their lousy service and throttling policies and figure to heck with that, too.
But it makes it much easier to resist, because there’s not as much opportunity for channel-flipping and staying glued to the screen for hours on end. (Although I have to say, even when I had TV I didn’t have to deal with the news, because I never turned to those channels.)