I haven’t watched television in several months, ever since the TV died. We didn’t have any money to replace it, but probably we won’t do so even if we get the money. Even when we did have a TV, we only used it to watch The Simpsons, Voyager, and the news.
The corpse of the TV is now lying in state in our living room with a sign from unamerican.com taped over it reading “The Tedium Is The Message”.
I sometimes watch TV if I’m over at someone’s house, but that’s quite rare, and in fact I kind of dislike it.
However, we do watch a huge amount of animé at our house, which we screen on Hamish’s computer (it has a DVD player). I don’t think that really counts since we actually have to trek to the store and rent it - it’s more like renting movies.
But the fact is we don’t watch broadcast TV virtually at all. Anyone else live sans TV?
I have one, but haven’t switched it on since 9-11. I have a pile of 5 videos of documentaries and other good programs sent to me over the last 6 months by relatives, which I will try to look at some time.
The broadcast TV here is terrible, and I don’t have cable/satellite (which would be bad too). I haven’t seen a new movie for years. I do find myself watching TV in a bar (no sound) or at friends’ places (classic movies).
I read books and magazines, and surf the web. The Internet has replaced TV for me, I think. In particular, the SDMB has a lot to answer for - interactive, above-average in terms of intelligence, and no commercials.
I don’t have a TV at school, because I am poor. So about the only times I ever watch TV are when I go to visit my mother. I like to leave the TV on when I’m working on making some jewelry, but that’s more for the noise than anything else. Since my attention is focused mostly on my work, I can put up with just about any dumb thing on TV. But I’ve found that it’s now very difficult for me to just sit and watch TV without doing anything else, because most of the stuff on TV is so stupid and predictable.
I wish I didn’t. I lived the first 18 years of my life with no TV (with the exception of rented videos) and was perfectly happy. But both the guys I live with now brought TVs to school, so we keep one in the living room.
I drive myself nuts when I sit there looking for something to watch - I don’t know if I’m just too cynical or what, but I don’t see the attraction in most of what’s available. So I mostly watch parts of baseball games while eating dinner, or whatever the guys are watching when I feel like being social in the evening.
Let’s face it, it’s dumb. There’s zero stimulation. It spoon-feeds your brain with candy. You don’t have to think or respond. You get no chance of exercising your critical, imaginative or creative powers. Unlike drying paint, you can’t meditate while watching it because it’s designed to be distracting and persistent. You’re forced to be totally passive. You’re an idiot. However stupid it gets, you just sit there and stare.
It says here that Research has even concluded that while a person is watching television, the body’s metabolism is 14.5% lower than while the person is sleeping.
I don’t have kids, but I would be tempted not to have a TV in the house if I did. I wonder if that would make them misfits - or are all the other kids misfits?
We have a TV, but I generally don’t watch. The only place I actually watch any television is at the bar. And about the only things I watch there are E/R, Six Feet Under, and Queer as Folk.
I watch two or three hours of TV a month, generally at other people’s houses. I didn’t own a TV for nearly two years. I did buy a used one from a friend recently, but I don’t have cable (necessary in NYC) so I use it to watch the occasional video. Even that’s rare.
And it’s really strange, as I have absolutely no idea what some people at work are talking about (when they’re talking about TV shows). The other day a couple of folks were taling about The Sopranos.
I have a TV, but I don’t watch it, except for videos.
I can’t even remember the last time I turned it on for watching boardcast (I don’t cable, too expensive and with 150 channels, there’s still nothing more intelligent than The Weather Channel).
Since I’m going back to school soon, the last time I need to do is get sucked into watching mindless drivel instead of my school work. sigh
If you meet the Buddha on the road, give him your TV!
And TV isn’t dumb. My mind is racing when I watch TV. I get really imaginitive and usually write my best music or poetry while I am watching TV. It is also relaxing at the same time. Like you said, metabolism goes way down when I’m watching TV. I think it’s like some sort of efficiency machine if I can get all this creativity out of it and use less resources at the same time.
TV rules!
I can’t believe some of the stuff I see is being fed to the public via TV. Talk about dumbing down. Most of the stuff that is supposed to be funny is just confusing to me. It’s like everyone who is conditioned to TV has some sector of the brain to process this “funny” stuff, and I am missing out on some inside joke.
And commercials, oh god, commercials. I don’t even want to get into it.
I try to watch as little TV as possible. I do watch a lot of movies though. For me TV is just something to do when youre waiting for something. If I have a little time to kill before an appointment or before work I will turn on the TV for a few minutes. That way I dont have to get ingrossed in anything while killing that time. There is nothing worse than killing a few minutes by reading a little of a book, youve been working on, when it all of a sudden gets really good so you dont want to put it down. TV is always easy to turn off though.
I stopped watching entirely since probably midway-ish through last year. It took three separate calls to the cable company to get them to stop sending me bills–the first customer ‘service’ lady seemed honestly floored that I wasn’t doing it in a move to a dish system, or seeking a better package deal, but just wanted it off, period. It’s given me much more time to read, watch DVDs, and play games.
We have cable mostly for the cable internet connection. Probably would have cencelled it if not for the fact that there’s no other high-speed internet available in our area.
There are two TVs in our house, but they are mainly used by the wife who is a professional videographer.
I do watch Farscape or JunkYard wars now and then. Getting more and more rate though, and I’m considering stopping watching TV completely.
I lived without TV for a couple of years when I was stationed overseas in the military. It wasn’t really intentional but I was absolutley astounded at the change. I was completely sober, completely sane and yet I had no idea of much of what people were yammering about and not only were alot of my TV watching contemporaries incomprehensible but if I simply apologized and said I didn’t know whereof they spoke THEY WOULD BECOME HOSTILE! To occupy myself I spent more time out of doors and immersed myself in books. I’m not kidding. It was the strangest most eye-opening thing I’ve ever experienced. It was literally like
an awakening after having been in a coma or stupor. Very dramatic. Thats been many years ago and I do employ the boob tube for entertainment purposes but to this day have no interest whatsover in the pulp garbage thats winning the emmys. I watch sports, documenteris and some news broadcasts.
I stopped watching in 1984. There have been moments since then when I was over at someone else’s house and watched a TV show with them, but I haven’t had my own reception set up (cable, etc) and neither does my girlfriend. We do have a pretty nice TV set which we use for videotape playback, though.
BOOOOOO! I hate TV snobs. Like actors, when asked if they’d ever act on a television series, who snort and say “Television? Oh, I don’t even watch television.” Sure there are plenty of stupid shows, but there are plenty of stupid people out there and I haven’t yet ceased communicating with them. I watch anything and everything, my favourites being shows like American Justice, Oz, Elimidate, Undeclared and Family Guy. And yes, I do manage to read a book or two a week, and write/draw/cook while watching TV. Drop by televisionwithoutpity.com and you’ll find plen-ty of very active television viewers.
There’s good T.V. out there, but for the most part, it’s still the same “vast wasteland” that Mr. Minnow described.
I have a TV and a VCR – no cable, no antennae. (I had cable internet for a couple of years, but no cable TV. How weird is that?) I download a couple of shows of the newsgroups – The Sopranos and South Park mainly. (Sometimes I sink to the X Files. But I always feel guilty about it.)
Mostly, the TV is for renting movies. I have a friend who occasionally shoots me a tape of stuff he figures I wouldn’t want to miss - with the commercials excised, god bless his pointy little head.
When I want fluffy entertainment, I rely on radio plays. (Old & New…)
I am primarily a reader, though.
Yes, I feel superior to people who follow “reality” (what a misnomer) TV, and vacant sit-coms. They are demeaning and insulting to everyone involved. Just like CNN.
