TV: Overrated and Overused
I've found that, if one is looking to enter into a bit more crunchiness in their lives, limiting or eliminating TV can be a great start.
I recognize that there’s quite a bit of sports, movies, and entertaining that can happen on TV. I further recognize that many Americans’ lives revolve around what programming the networks hand them. My favorite TV show, Baseball Tonight, has been unavailable to me since that college-era billing error.
Still, most of my extended family has cable, and most of the time I flip through their channels I’m boggled as to how many channels are a complete waste. You’re generally not allowed to pay by the channel, so 80% of your $50 monthly fee is literally trashed.
For Lent, my wife and I moved our TV to the basement. It’s still on, you can still watch it. I didn’t miss any of the NCAA tournament, and I could have finished this season of ‘24’ if we hadn’t had a baby. Still, though, there’s a symbolic leaving of the upstairs that needs to happen if you want to watch TV in our house; it’s a subtle reminder that you’re leaving the family to do your own thing. In balanced amounts, that’s perfectly fine – I fully intend to leave the family for any Bears’ game televised in Madison this fall. But do I really need to watch Simpsons everyday? And the Newshour with Jim Lehrer? And 24? And Seinfeld? And ten sticks of other crap?
If we had cable, would I really need to watch Baseball Tonight every day? Entertaining though it is, television serves more to keep families from interacting with one another than it does to provide enjoyment, by and large. Meanwhile, I’ve read five books this year, and I have more time to help my wife with housework. Yes, I miss catching all the news, scores, and highlights from the day’s action in Major League Baseball, but I can’t say I’m not a better person for it.
Mostly a waste of money, mostly a waste of time. Turn off your TV for one month, or at least reposition your TV so as to make it a bit less convenient to watch. You’ll be a better person for it, too.
posted by Lyons at
11:33 AM
4 Comments:
Agreed, per usual, even if people balk at the size/price of my TV. (The fact is, I don't watch much TV compared to most folks our age.) When I buy a house, the TV is definitely going in the basement. If that were to happen right now I wouldn't exactly have a family I'd be avoiding, but it would allow the upstairs to be a meeting place that facilitates discussion. And on occasion, we could retreat to the basement if desired to watch a movie or catch some show.
5:02 PM
I like your idea of putting the TV in the basement. It's not saying that TV is bad, it's just taking it out of the main family area. As you know, we don't have a TV. We're not against it, we just don't want or need it right now, and we have a laptop and projector so we can watch movies if we want. It's just nice not to have our main living space centered around the TV. Good blog!
8:59 AM
Do you feel more pressure when you blog now that your priest has advertised it for you?
You could make the same case for a computer connected to the internet as for a TV.
3:33 PM
Indeed you could. For me personally there is less temptation to be consumed into the Internet. I also think that a family or other group of people is probably much less likely to center themselves around the Internet on any regular basis as compared to the TV. Actually, it is probably safer for the family to place the computer in a plain-sight area when you consider all the crap on the Internet.
3:45 PM
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