Good Reasons I Don’t Watch TV

A couple of years ago, if you told someone you didn’t own a TV set or, worse, you had one but did not watch, they would look at you in disbelief, wondering if you were plane crazy. What else could you do in the evening and during weekends? Things have now changed. You can see admiration in their eyes – you broke the evil circle, you know longer have to plan everything around commercial breaks! No more stupid news getting you through to the weather broadcast!

I rented apartments were there wasn’t a TV and I was happy. No temptation, more time. Then I moved and was faced with the evil box once more. For about a month and a half, once I got home, I just had to watch it for a short while which turned into hours. And of course we needed to listen to the news in the morning, while drinking our coffee!

I then realized the madness I was allowing myself to be dragged into and stopped. Don’t get me wrong, there are series I still love and watch, but on the computer, not on TV, and here are the reasons why:

  • TV is quite addictive. It’s an easy way to let yourself be lazy while thinking you are doing something fun. But what’s fun about detergent commercial, dark and useless news worth to throw at the garbage bin, or about the boring movie you decide to watch until the one that actually interests you starts?
  • It is extremely time consuming: a 20 minute episode gets to 45 minutes because of 15 minutes of commercial breaks and because you can’t really skip the intro.
  • It can easily get you angry: you see people exposing their twisted way of thinking that makes you wonder if the world around you is still sane. Do they actually expect anyone to believe there’s a ghost haunting the TV crew LIVE?!?
  • It alters one’s sense of what’s important – given the dozens of false critical happenings being poured into our brains during the news bulletins, there are increasing numbers of people believing in false fashion gods and in the greatness of self-imposed famous lives. The political scene is a circus and everything really important is lost as such facts get a quick mention.
  • It’s old news! Everything they broadcast: movies, music, news, have already been posted online. Especially since there are quite a few frequently updated, domestic online newspapers.

And I can assure you I am in the target of quite a few commercials I decide not to watch. The downside? I never see the funny ones. But I can live with that, everything extremely funny is said to get uploaded on YouTube and are then forwarded through emails.

What do you think of this? Do you watch TV? Why, why not?

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This post has 6 comments

  • Joanna Young

    I think I could probably live without it now… but I do still like to watch some things, I find it’s a good way to switch off and get my mind to stop trying to blog!

    I follow two UK Soaps and ER (probably my all time favourite TV programme!) Maybe the advertising isn’t so bad with us – I notice it with ER where they have lots of ad breaks but not in UK created programmes

    Now I’m distracted reading your Twitter updates on your blog so I see you’re up and about so I’ll go and say hi there :-)

    Joanna

  • Alina Popescu

    Hi Joanna, I also watch a few series, but they are all foreign and I have better chances to get them faster online :) And I like having control over when I see what, unfortunately :)

    Speaking of UK shows, I am crazy about the IT Crowd! Can’t wait for the next series :)

  • bart

    hi alina,

    thanks for this, it’s a topic i’m very interested in myself…

    a book i found to be very informative on this topic was “amusing ourselves to death” by neil postman, in which he quite convincingly demonstrates the ways in which news and information has been trivialised and degraded to “amusement value” instead of being uplifting and educating…

    another is “the hidden persuaders” (i’ve forgotten who the author is/was) which is perhaps 50 years old but is still very relevant in the analysis of how depth psychology is used in marketing products and ideas in modern society…

    hope this helps…

  • Alina Popescu

    Hi Bart, thanks for the recommendations. I remember a book close to your second one from university, but it’s quite blurry right now :)

  • James Fuller

    I stopped watching TV after I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 22. I’m now 37 and I own a single 27″ CRT TV mainly because my wife enjoys watching foreign films on DVD (she’s from Japan). One of the main reasons why I stopped watching TV was because I got tired of watching someone else’s exaggerated lifestyle. Why would I want to get my life’s emotions from a TV when I can turn the TV off and go create that same amusement for myself (something real). I honestly think that TV escalates the bombardment of advertising we are exposed to everyday, in addition to billboards, websites, radio, etc. I also think that TV plays a huge roll in the problems children face with concentration, poor study skills, social skills, imagination, and the biggest of all – a sharp decline of literacy levels. I have read “amusing ourselves to death” and I thought it was a great book. It’s an older book, but makes some very good points none the less. Coercion by Douglas Rushkoff is another great book too.

  • Alina Popescu

    James, thank you for your comment and the book recommendations.

    I try very hard to make enough time to read a book every week. As for tv, I still am a big fan of certain movies and TV series, but I prefer to watch them on my computer, whenever I have the time for it, and without the advertising interruptions :)

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