No more TV?

One of the best ways I've found to simplify my time was getting rid of my TV.  This, for me, was a daunting task as I was a heavy TV watcher, but I found that once I'd done it, it wasn't so bad.  I discuss this in greater detail in my blog today, and I'd love to hear your experiences.

Have you done this?  If not, are you considering it?  What's holding you back?

If so, what benefits have you gained from it?  Or did it turn out to be less life-changing than you'd expected?

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Great topic!

There is a great book entitled 'Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television' by Jerey Mander.  It's funny cause it was actually written in the 70's but it's so applicable to today.  One of the books major points is that television gives the mantra that we are all having the same experience when in fact it is a completely isolative and individual experience.  Another danger of television, Mander argues, is all of the created 'needs' that appear.  And this was over 30 years ago when advertising was more mild and not as manipulative.

I am ashamed that i have read that book and can recite that mantra i just gave, cause the truth is i'm addicted to the television.  I recently had a week vacation.  Sure i took some time to be in nature, but , ashamedly, i spent anywhere from 6-10 hours in front of the television.   What is wrong with me?

And i know exactly why it's such a draw for me too.  It allows me to tune out reality.  It allows me to not have to deal with what's really going on.  It allows me to not deal with the deep parts of my soul and spirit that need healing.  Television is one of the barriers to really discovering myself. 

After i read Mander's book in college, i actually did stop watching tv.  But eventually i gave in to the television society and to friends who told me stop being so radical.  I tend to have weak knees when it comes to adversity.

So, to answer the question, i believe with passion and conviction that life without a television is a life of freedom, freedom to be, freedom to create, freedom to think for oneself (what a concept in this society huh)?  And, i agree with Maile, i think it is a crucial part to living simply

I would love to hear from fellow addicts and tough love from you bold, courageous who are not afraid to live your convictions. 

The worst part for me is, again, i have all this knowledge but i still consume the garbage.  That makes me worse than the average schmo who never questioned.  To have knowledge in the head but not the heart, to know but not to live, is a low down dirty shame.

I mean, don't get me wrong, there are some great movies that have given me a great knowledge and perspective on life, and there are a few shows on television that are groudbreaking and expose Truth.  But, there is no argument that 99%, no, i'll even give you 90%, is utterly pointless, mindless garbage.  So maybe there can be an argument for having a tv around, i don't know.   It makes for a good debate.

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I lived for a long time with no cable tv. There wasn't that much to watch. Each time I had a boyfriend, they would order cable. Argh. I consider this as bad as video and computer games. A great way to hide from the Self. What you find in there might be scary, so it is best to avoid.

That being said, my ds, now 2.5 is allowed to watch 1/2 per day of his Signing Time video without commercials and I tape shows on dh new dvd recorder. I like recording because I don't get a strong need to watch a show. I end up deleting a lot of shows without watching them. A bit like being allowed to eat some chocolate while dieting. You don't feel deprived and in the end don't need it.

Besides, it frees up so much time, not watching tv. Think of all the new things you can discover and other radical ideas you can support. :)

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I used to be a big tv watching. I had to watch tv everyday. Not anymore. I wonder if I had cable I would have been able to quit. well anyway I’m so glad I did.

(This is my first post, I hope I can get something out of this site)

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John and Nele, I think you guys have a good point about the cable.  Getting rid of it first is a good way to start; the shows you can get with an antenna are somehow less addictive.

I found, too, that like Nele, recording shows (I had Tivo) helped.  Once I got rid of cable, I started finding all kinds of great shows to Tivo on PBS.  I also recorded some sitcoms and court shows, then after a while it just got boring, repetitive, predictable.  And I knew the shows would be there if I ever wanted them, so I didn't feel any need to watch them (and, of course, i could avoid all the commericals with tivo).

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I have a 10 year old son. Our family has been TVless for about 5 years now. We would never go back. Evening finds us all sitting around reading together in front of the fireplace. We actually talk to each other. Go for walks together.

We all get asked regularly how in the world we can stand having no TV. I ask why anyone would want a noisy obnoxious box in their main living space, telling them what they should believe, what they should want and how they should live their lives. It's voluntarily offering your headspace for propaganda….it's just plain inane (most of it) and it costs a lot of money.

I find my son is very content with what he has. I think that's because he isn't constantly inundated with advertising. When we did watch TV, he was taught to “talk back” to commercials…vocalizing things like “I don't need that just because you tell me I do!”

I din't find it distressing that he watches TV at his friends house at times. It's time limited and he is discriminating. We don't want to paint it as “evil”…it's just not something our family chooses to do with it's time.

What I HAVE noticed by being TVless is how hypnotic television can be. If I am in a room and there is a TV playing it is very difficult to look away. That damn thing DEMANDS your attention. I never noticed this until I hadn't been around it for awhile.

I'm sure there are some great shows that I miss. Then again, there are lots of books, sunsets and conversations that other people miss too. I'm really happy with our choice.

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Read this today and thought I'd pass it along here…
 

From: How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

by Philip K. Dick, 1978

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. George Orwell made this clear in his novel 1984. But another way to control the minds of people is to control their perceptions. If you can get them to see the world as you do, they will think as you do. Comprehension follows perception. How do you get them to see the reality you see? After all, it is only one reality out of many. Images are a basic constituent: pictures. This is why the power of TV to influence young minds is so staggeringly vast. Words and pictures are synchronized. The possibility of total control of the viewer exists, especially the young viewer. TV viewing is a kind of sleep-learning. An EEG of a person watching TV shows that after about half an hour the brain decides that nothing is happening, and it goes into a hypnoidal twilight state, emitting alpha waves. This is because there is such little eye motion. In addition, much of the information is graphic and therefore passes into the right hemisphere of the brain, rather than being processed by the left, where the conscious personality is located. Recent experiments indicate that much of what we see on the TV screen is received on a subliminal basis. We only imagine that we consciously see what is there. The bulk of the messages elude our attention; literally, after a few hours of TV watching, we do not know what we have seen. Our memories are spurious, like our memories of dreams; the blank are filled in retrospectively. And falsified. We have participated unknowingly in the creation of a spurious reality, and then we have obligingly fed it to ourselves. We have colluded in our own doom.

http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm

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feral,

i completely agree with you (and that passage you posted) about the power of tv to influence our realities.  it's amazing how a tv can draw your attention away from everything else.  we finally sold our tivo this weekend and when the people came to buy it, they had to turn on the tv to test it out.  instantly we were all drawn to the screen, a woman mispronouncing gnocci, some cheese falling onto a plate.  it was several seconds before our conversation picked up again and they tested out the machine, bought it an left.  so strange. 

i don't think i would have noticed it had i not gotten used to having it off.  Our attention really can change once tv is gone.  Like you, i've noticed more sunsets, read more books, gone for walks and spent more time talking with my husband.  it's been a really satisfying experience so far.

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Though I still have a television (mainly for news, information and emergency anouncements), I like that fact that it doesn't command my life. I feel better knowing that despite having the TV, I'm free to do without it on at will.

Your Pod is very strengthening and encouraging Maile. Keep up the inspiration.

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Hi all, new zaad here :)

I have an odd situation; I don't own a television, yet I can't stop watching tv!  Almost as soon as I got this computer (about two years ago), I discovered what amounts to a “streaming tivo” service, which is now up to forty+ channels.  My watching varies, but it's not hard to spend hours at a stretch when the episodes are streaming back-to-back with no commercials.  On top of that, I subscribe to the Daily Show on Itunes. 

I do continually find new ways to simplify my life, but I have some temptation-management issues when it comes to the internet. 

Responding to feral and Maile's observations about how strange tv is when you're not used to it, I've often noticed during my tv-less times that when I did see tv, the propaganda and emotional manipulation were coarse and blatant.  After a day or two of habituation, however, you don't see it anymore.

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Hello everyone,

I've been happily tv-free for approximately 5 years from now. I got rid of my set because I was living at my first own apartment (upstairs of an old wooden house) and the tv started to make a strange hissing noise everytime I turned it off. So I figured what the heck, I'm none the worse without it. I haven't regretted it a minute since.

I used to watch lots of of tv, movies of different suspicious variety (titles like Bullet in the Head, Evil Dead and Bad Taste, to name the most classic ones) at my pre teen and late puberty years so I could say I got sitting in front of the box out of my system. Nowadays I just sit in front of a book, cant really say if that's any better LOL ;) Some people used to ask me “what do you do if you don't have a telly? Isn't it boring?” I wouldn't say I'm any good at managing my time effectively (although I'm working on betterment in that area) but I sure don't get bored without tv. Besides, going to the cinema is a total freak-out nowadays! After a long pause of seeing pictures moving that isn't real (no metaphysical pun intended) it's well worth the ticket going to the movies. It's like, voluntary influencing the amount of satisfaction you get for the price you pay. Neat, huh?

I must confess though I'm living with my girlfriend part of the time and she has a tv. We use it only for watching movies or the occasional news/documentary/Pimp My Ride, which happens maybe one or two times a week. Mostly it's rental films. Sliding Doors is airing tonight so I think we'll watch that :)

Taosaur, go check out www.meaningoflife.tv - they got lots of good interview material for free, you could replace your tempations on the net with …  more meaningful ones ;)

Feral, your home life sounds idyllic - I've read your posts on IN, it's nice to meet you here too! :)

Re: No more TV?

Hello everyone,

I've been happily tv-free for approximately 5 years now. I got rid of my set because I was living at my first own apartment (upstairs of an old wooden house) and the tv started to make a strange hissing noise everytime I turned it off. So I figured what the heck, I'm none the worse without it. I haven't regretted it a minute since.

I used to watch lots of of tv, movies of different suspicious variety (titles like Bullet in the Head, Evil Dead and Bad Taste, to name the most classic ones) at my pre teen and late puberty years so I could say I got sitting in front of the box out of my system. Nowadays I just sit in front of a book, cant really say if that's any better LOL ;) Some people used to ask me “what do you do if you don't have a telly? Isn't it boring?” I wouldn't say I'm any good at managing my time effectively (although I'm working on betterment in that area) but I sure don't get bored without tv. Besides, going to the cinema is a total freak-out nowadays! After a long pause of seeing pictures moving that isn't real (no metaphysical pun intended) it's well worth the ticket going to the movies. It's like, voluntary influencing the amount of satisfaction you get for the price you pay. Neat, huh?

I must confess though I'm living with my girlfriend part of the time and she has a tv. We use it only for watching movies or the occasional news/documentary/Pimp My Ride, which happens maybe one or two times a week. Mostly it's rental films. Sliding Doors is airing tonight so I think we'll watch that :)

Taosaur, go check out www.meaningoflife.tv - they got lots of good interview material for free, you could replace your tempations on the net with …  more meaningful ones ;)

Feral, your home life sounds idyllic - I've read your posts on IN, it's nice to meet you here too! :)

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I don't have a tv and I never think about missing it.  I don't like it how when I tv is off it's just a big, dark box.  

But I love my mac and watch stuff on it from time to time (most recently Prison Break).  It looks beautiful on or off.

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i've been without a tv for several months and don't miss it in the least.  recently i told a coworker during the course of a conversation that i didn't own a television, and he looked at me like i was from mars (which, in fact, i am), and asked me if i just stared at a big empty spot on the wall every night.  my reply was, no i think that's probably what you do.  (he was offended momentarily, but got over it, although apparently he has no memory because every now and then he'll ask me if i saw 'american idol' or 'lost' or some other popular show.)

but really, i don't miss it.  if i want to watch a movie, i use my laptop.  otherwise, i have no trouble finding distractions keeping me from what i really should be doing, so being tv-less hasn't really helped in that regard.  however, my apartment does seem more peaceful, and i don't have this ugly black box taking up space.

what's funny is the way i obtained my last tv, which i gave to my nephew late last year.  i was tv-less because my previous tv had given up the ghost.  it had been a few months and i wasn't missing it at all, but my sister felt sorry for me, so she gave me a 20-inch television for christmas.  i didn't really want it, but couldn't very well say no, so if it weren't for her, this stretch would probably be at least 6 years long, instead of just 7 months.  oh well. :)

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It is funny how much people think they need it, huh?  I was one of those people until I got rid of mine.  I would say I was something like terrified at the thought of not having TV to watch.  What would I do?  Wouldn't I be bored?  Yet, I somehow also knew that it would improve my life, would create more time, more peace.  And, indeed it has.  

 Your co-worker's question about starting at the wall sounds so ridiculous, and your answer was so right-on.  And yet, only a few months ago, i was totally in his shoes.

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Does it count if I have A tv but don't have tv?

I haven't had tv stations in at least, oh 8 years.  I keep my tv and a dvd player (was a gift) because I enjoy movies about once a month and so does my son (probably weekly).

My family thinks I'm weird.  I only care when they hassle me about coming to their house to watch Steeler games.

My ? to them on Sunday visits as I sit and watch them quickly flip through the hundredorso channels about 1 whole round per minute and listen to them gripe about nothing being on…. you could find something better to do with this time? with that $60 per month?

My kid is too active to think he's missing anything.

I don't even get second looks or hesitation anymore when coworkers or friends or other groups I linger in ask in general “Did you see ____ last night” and I pipe in “Nope, don't have tv”.

We are never inside to even think about watching it.  Even on stormy days we're more happy to read something, play something, knock out a bunch of chores so the next sunny day can be all fun.

I get my news from the online newspaper.  I can't flip to the weatherchannel so if I have plans I have to remember to think ahead to check.  Other than that required NO adjustments.

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I also have a TV but a very small one with horrible reception…  and we don't have the cable, so we can't watch anything on it except for VHS and DVDs.  If I was living alone I wouldn't have a television, in fact I didn't have one in my appartment last year and although I found it hard at times, I was very happy with my decision since I believe that most programs on TV are not that interesting/intelligent anyways and my time is better spent reading/exercising/cooking/studying/whatever, not sitting in front of a box without any interactions with the rest of the world (or a fake one!).  But my partner wants to keep the TV to rent movies, so there we go ;)  At least we rent movies with intelligent stories, documentaries, foreign movies that teach us about other cultures and point of views, etc., and we mostly take them at our National Library, so it's not a total waste of time…