Life without Television at ALL????

[Pebblszzz]

How would your life change if you never turned on that TV set, or got rid of it entirely?

Hubby and I have had ours off for 18 months.

It's pure heaven....

(except when I was laid up after surgery, we made an exception and rented TONS of videos)

We spend more time together just talking, cooking together, we have each other's undivided attention, we walk, ride bikes, go out, and sometimes just sit on the patio and watch the sunset.

Without the idiot box on all the time, we do get bored - so we find more interesting and exciting things to do with our time, and it's more quality time than what we'd have in front of the tube.

We have the internet for news, and aren't bombarded with stuff we don't care to see (like commercials, for example).

It's pretty neat. When I travel for work, and turn on the TV in the hotel room, NOTHING is a re-run to me!

 

[Colleen A.]

I don't think I could do that and I am TOTALLY SURE that my kids would go nuts!!! I only watch it about an hour during the day when I'm home alone, but we all love curling up in the living room and watching together.

But then again, maybe without the tv on, I would of had my cd burner working a lot sooner!! (Alex is great, he got it up and running in no time!! )

Colleen

 

[Planogirl]

My husband is out of town a lot plus he goes to bed way earlier than me. And one can't play on the 'Net all of the time not even the DIS. Besides, I'd end up spending a lot of money to see the movies in the theaters rather than just renting them.

 

[jamsmom]

I am pretty sure I would die! I have it on almost 24 hours/day...maybe not quite that bad. Although, sometimes when it is on, I have no clue what is really on.

 

[helenabear]

It wouldn't be too hard for us. We rarely watch any real show on TV. We both enjoy playing on our computers more than watching TV and I must say this laptop thing is nice to share things I find on the internet with him I do watch the news a little in the morning before work, but only really to find the weather. If I turn my computer on in the morning, I am alwasy late to work

 

[dizneenut]

Well, being that I am a total TV ADDICT, I would go insane with no TV.

 

[ltldeb]

I don't watch as much tv as I surf online. I'm sure it would take some getting used to, but I don't think it would be that bad. Now, my kids on the other hand, would go crazy.

 

[Kitty 34]

My DH would die for sure........I could last maybe a week or two!!

 

[beachbunny]

The rule growing up was no t.v. on school nights (I guess that rule would have to be expanded today to include no internet). When you're not watching t.v., you have more time to do so many other things. Must have worked... my parents raised a JD, a PhD and an MD. To this day, I don't really care to watch t.v.

 

[GeorgeG]

Not having TV would probably kill my wife, but it wouldn't bother me much at all. I rarely turn it on when I'm home alone.

I think I was about 5 or 6 when we first got TV and just listened to the radio or entertained ourselves before that. Life wasn't all that bad back then. Indoor plumbing was nice, though...

 

[PandyPaws]

I could live without it...I hardly turn it on at all. In fact, it's usually turned on for the first time each day after the kids get home from school.

 

[EltonJohn]

I did that in my college years. For the first two years all I had were my videos to watch becuase I didn't want to pay for cable. Then, in my final year at Baylor I did not have my TV or VCR, but my last rommate did have a tele.

The TV could be really annoying to. Everytime President Bush made a visit to his ranch in Crawford the local news made a big deal of it and spliced the tv screen in two The first time I saw it I thought something important was going on, no, he was just going to his ranch. That is not really newsworthy.

But I also missed out on a lot of news though. For instance, I heard about 9/11 through the radio and thought that a small plane had crashed into the WTC. I only found out that it was a jumbo jet later on in my first class.

Now that I'm back home I usually just watch the Fox News Channel (The O'Reilly Factor) and 20/20 (I've watched that show ever since I was a teenager). I nearly forgot one other thing, I love sports, especially soccer, so I can't go to long without a TV now, even if the soccer match is in Spanish.

Regards

 

[TennVolTony]

I'm sorry...did you say something?? I was watching the Braves game......

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by beachbunny
The rule growing up was no t.v. on school nights (I guess that rule would have to be expanded today to include no internet). When you're not watching t.v., you have more time to do so many other things. Must have worked... my parents raised a JD, a PhD and an MD. To this day, I don't really care to watch t.v.

This was the rule in my house too, and I have never really cared for TV. Except when the Bucs are playing!

Everyone else around my house loves it. A few years ago, we did go without it for a month or so, when both sets broke at the same time. It about killed my DD!

 

[allicat]

I find that I dont watch much tv at all anymore so I dont think my life would change that much without a tv but I couldnt imagine my DD without her Disney channel ( Lizzie McGuire fanatic)and DH without his YES Yankees network!
DH works 12 hour days and sometimes he just needs to unwind in front of the TV watching the Yankees.

 

[Keli]

We haven't had a tv in our house for about 5-6 years. One day we decided it was taking up too much of our time and that we were watching too much garbage anyway so we got rid of it and haven't looked back.
Of course that isn't to say that we haven't watched tv in the last 5-6 years. We run over to my parent's home if there is something that's going to be on tv that we want to see or if something major is going on newswise that we feel we can't get the full picture on the net (spent lots of time over there when the war got started). It just worked better for our family. We spend a lot more time together talking, playing games or being together than we used to and I think it's the right thing for us.

 

[catsrule]

DH would go insane.

 

[Credit Man]

I would die!

 

[Baboo]

It wouldn't bother me at all. A few summers ago, I got rid of the cable for the summer, so that basically we had no tv. The kids thought I'd lost my mind when I told them what I'd done, but I think it was actually worse for DH! He grew up in a house where the tv went on in the morning when the first person got up and went off when the last person went to bed. When we first got married, it drove me crazy having it on while we were eating a meal at his parents' place. Usually it gets turned off now when we're having a meal there. I can't get rid of the cable anymore though, since our internet is cable, and I certainly don't want to live without that!

 

[MarkRG]

I'm very much a take-it-or-leave-it person now when it comes to tv. I normally only have it on for local news and Nascar races, occasionally a movie or something might be one I wanted to see.

I never watch 'prime time' programming anymore. To me all of that is total garbage, don't find any of it entertaining anymore. I would have to say that a lot of it comes from somthing that is happening more and more lately in mainstream media in general - recycling. A large amount of current media entertainment seems to be just copies. Turn on a tv show, and I recognise something from something else I've seen a long time ago. And direct copycatting - ok, yet another fake couple matching show(the monica thing pops to mind, her 10 seconds of fame is far over), or yet another no-talent show (american idol) to waste time on.

Now I think my DW would go buggy if she had to stop watching it.