Who here doesn't watch TV?

[ProjectX]

I live in a college residence. My bedroom has a TV right next to my study desk so its a real distraction at times. I'm thinking of maybe getting rid of it for good.
Has anyone successfully gone without TV for months at a time? What do you do when you are really bored?

[gingerbaker]

I haven't watched TV in years. I do occasionally (maybe once every few months?) watch a show online, or rent DVDs. I will watch movies a bit more frequently (maybe once every week or two?). For Alias I bought the season DVDs and I was watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but that would be the extent of it.

What do I do? I go out dancing (salsa in particular). Pre-kids I did a lot more crafting, going out socializing (especially watching burlesque shows!), dates, etc. Post-kids, well, when I am not dancing I am often home taking care of chores in the scant hours I have left LOL. Or squeezing in a date here and there (finding a few local poly people has been just fabulous!)

I HIGHLY recommend ditching the tv. Seriously.

[magi13]

Originally Posted by ProjectX

I live in a college residence. My bedroom has a TV right next to my study desk so its a real distraction at times. I'm thinking of maybe getting rid of it for good.
Has anyone successfully gone without TV for months at a time? What do you do when you are really bored?

TV does not interest me. I don't watch it. :3...

^<^ I have hobbies to occupy my time.

[Vanessa]

I stopped watching TV when I lived in the dorms. Once it wasn't an option,
I got out and did a lot more activities and met a lot more people and when I was in the dorm I'd be less distracted when studying.

Try it out. If you ever need a TV fixing you can visit someone down the hall who'll still have a TV and you can see whatever shows you miss that aren't available online.

I never really got back into the habit of watching TV since then but I'm a doer kind of person. I'd rather be out and about and with other people than watch things from afar.

[JaredR]

You don't have to get rid of it for good. Just practice moderation. I watch half an hour of Full House when I get home from school, and that's it. TV is not a huge part of my life at all, but I can still enjoy it.

[Brutha]

I have no TV.

Has anyone successfully gone without TV for months at a time? What do you do when you are really bored?

Surfing this forum
But I'm not really bored anyway since I'm always procrastinating something.

[Hagerup]

I watch tv like 15 minutes a week or so, on average. I'm from Holland and the time people spend watching tv is on average 2 hours a day, the time that their tv is turned on averages close to 4 hours..

So the 14 hours that I save that way on a weekly basis I mainly spend on reading I think.. I maintain a list of all the topics that I want to dive into, persons that I want to get to know more about (painters, writers), book titles that I want to read some day. I've got enough topics that I find genuinely cool to occupy myself for at least 2 years - no need to be bored, so.

[MagicalRealist]

Originally Posted by ProjectX

Has anyone successfully gone without TV for months at a time?

I did so for many years--from 1989 to 2004.

Actually, I did own a TV again after 1994, but lived in an area with minimal TV reception so I only used it to watch movies.

Then I moved, ended up getting basic cable along with cable Internet, and gradually TV became a huge time-sink.

I still have cable, still have a TV, but I haven't turned it on since mid-December. I've got out of the habit of watching it, so while I occasionally think about seeing what's on, it now seems kind of pointless. I'm on the verge of calling the cable company to cancel my service. If there's something I genuinely want to watch, I figure I can always torrent it. And if it's not worth the hassle of downloading it, it's probably not worth watching anyway.

What do you do when you are really bored?

"Boredom" is a lack of mental stimulation--or, rather, awareness of that lack. If you don't want to be bored, find ways to engage your brain. It doesn't have to be something "intellectual"; it could be physical exercise, reading trashy novels, going for a walk, playing a game with someone, taking up a hobby--hell, even cleaning up your room.

To be honest, I don't really understand the concept of "boredom" outside of certain limited circumstances (such as a tedious lecture that you still have to pay attention to, or a dull book that is required reading). There's always something to do, and if there isn't, you invent something. Or pick something you've never done before that you think you might like to do, and go do that.

[dice]

gosh i havent touched the thing for 3-4 years. It kind of faded out of my life in grade 9...Sometimes I channel surf but I don't get hooked on TV shows or sucked into them. 1 hour is my record. Commercials vex me, I can tolerate 3 reruns of a decent one but after that I'm out.

I still watch DVDs of Seinfeld etc. Late Night and the Tonight Show I like to watch but I always forget to.

just dump it. get hoooked on youtube instead.

mind you, I have many other vices that make up 12x for the lack of TV.
TV would actually be preferable to being a facebook or myspace junkie. But if you can get hooked on a useful hobby (mine was photoshop, HTML, finalcutpro, and rawfoodist websites) then go go go.

[Froztwolf]

I haven't watched TV for close to two years now, just because I'm not interested. I do watch a fair bit of shows on DVD but no scheduled programming.

It's easy to quit. Just fade it out. Set yourself a target of watching no TV 3 days a week, then 4, then 5 and so on. This way you give yourself time to find other things to do instead.

[Aleksander Krstic]

I haven't been watching TV for a month, however I play computer 5 hours a day instead, so that's not really a gain.

[Andrew Gubb]

LOL! I haven't watched TV for years. The internet is a good enough distraction. But I don't really feel the need to procrastinate anymore -- I've gotten out of environments that try to force me to work, so I do what I want, when I want, and I don't need to escape reality much.

[leaderspd]

Not a big fan of the boob-tube either ! The replayed negative news stories and the crap reality shows just irritate me. I will run it in the background if there is a big news story breaking, but after about 10 minutes of that - off it goes....!

[bluedragon]

I never watch TV but I watch movies on my computer. And episodes from TV series, still on my computer. This way, I can watch them whenever I want to, without advertising breaks and all the fuss. However, I suspect that watching ANY kind of TV is detrimental to intelligence and attention, as many studies suggest. There are theories that state that content is irrelevant to the negative effects of television (or so I understand). Still investigating...

[bbdream8]

Originally Posted by ProjectX

I live in a college residence. My bedroom has a TV right next to my study desk so its a real distraction at times. I'm thinking of maybe getting rid of it for good.
Has anyone successfully gone without TV for months at a time? What do you do when you are really bored?

I had stopped watching TV programs for around 3 years. It doesn't even bother me anymore.

Vincent
Personal Development Blogger

[cheech]

I never watch TV by myself. I'll watch it with my housemates sometimes. I find it a nice, relaxing, semi-social activity. This does mean I end up watching whatever they watch, though, most of which isn't great. That's not really the point though, for me at least

[Andrew Brunelle]

I stopped watching TV for awhile. Then I went back to it. I just like certain shows and I watch them. I maybe watch 10 hours a week. Maybe less. But I choose what to watch. I don't go channel surfing, looking for things that might pique my interest, except during the commericals.

[Eric Roosevelt]

Originally Posted by Froztwolf

It's easy to quit. Just fade it out. Set yourself a target of watching no TV 3 days a week, then 4, then 5 and so on.

That sounds a bit like the advice someone gave me back when I was learning how to stop biting my fingernails. Start with one forbidden finger, then two, then three...

I have a TV, but I've basically stopped watching it. I'll turn it on maybe once a week. I think a lot of people on this forum, if not the majority, are quite disciplined about the amount of time they spend in front of the TV.

[TheEnthusiast]

i watch tv less than 2 hours week .but i love my computer

[SimonaRich]

I don't watch TV. My life is full of excitement and I do not need some entertainment to observe for hours.

I think people that watch TV simply do not have interesting lives. But they could make their lives interesting if they only wished.

[Eric Roosevelt]

Originally Posted by TheEnthusiast

i watch tv less than 2 hours week .but i love my computer

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people who cut their time in front of the TV end up spending twice as much time in front of the computer. It's quite a complicated problem, because the computer has so many more functions. It's more or less indispensible to us now. Unfortunately all the productive stuff we can do on the computer is just a few clicks away from the unproductive stuff. Which is why it's always good to "surf with a purpose".

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by Brutha

But I'm not really bored anyway since I'm always procrastinating something.

[Bleicke]

When I was 3 years old, our family TV burnt to the ground. We didn't get a new one.

I've watched TV from time to time when I'm at a friends house or something, but the quality is so immensely bad that I can't stand it any longer.

I watch lots of movies and shows, though, but on DVD and over the internet. I love movies and many shows (Lost, etc.). TV is just such a bad method of watching them: ads all over the place, have to wait for a specific time to watch something, have to wait a week for the next episode, small screen (DVDs on a HD projector definitely owns every TV).

Why would anyone watch TV? There's nothing on TV that's not better provided elsewhere.

[bluedragon]

Do you think that watching a scene in a movie is different from watching a scene unfold in real life, as long as we don't participate in any way in it? Can we say that watching a scene on TV, ANY scene, is harmful to our focus, productivity and general mental health, while watching a scene unfold before us in reality, without participating, is not?
I'm asking this in view of the studies that seem to prove that watching animated images on a screen that are not real is something our brains are totally incapable of effectively "digesting", since before TV, ALL moving images without exception were real, and there is also the problem of rapid pacing of TV images, focusing on certain details, camera tricks, etc.

[dmauder]

Originally Posted by Eric Roosevelt

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people who cut their time in front of the TV end up spending twice as much time in front of the computer. It's quite a complicated problem, because the computer has so many more functions. It's more or less indispensible to us now. Unfortunately all the productive stuff we can do on the computer is just a few clicks away from the unproductive stuff. Which is why it's always good to "surf with a purpose".

This is me - 100%! I haven't been watching as much TV lately, but my new addiction is facebook. Ugh!

Dave

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by SimonaRich

I think people that watch TV simply do not have interesting lives.

really ?

[lifetimelearner]

well you could always watch interesting videos like this -YouTube - Lisa Marie Presley - IDIOT video

[bluedragon]

I have an interesting life, but I also have a very interesting imagination, and watching an interesting movie makes me think about 1000 things at once - how would it be like if I was living something like in that movie, or what character traits from it I could borrow, etc. It's also a way of procrastinating, because my life is so interesting it's scary sometimes I guess...

[Cyllya]

I occasionally watch anime on the internet, and I use the television for playing video games, but I don't watch TV on a TV.

I think TV is a really bad boredom cure. Like playing Solitaire on the computer, but slightly worse. If you're watching because you're bored, you're probably only slightly less bored while watching, so you're wasting your time either way. (Even if there's particular shows you like, you have to be careful you don't do this with the boring shows in between the good ones.)

I think TV shows are as fine an entertainment medium as anything else, but actually watching it on a TV as they were designed for isn't so good, because...
1) For everything 30 minutes you spend watching, you only get about 20-25 minutes of entertainment, unless all the commercials were funny.
2) You have to regularly come back to the TV at a certain time to continue watching the story. It's like having a part-time job!
3) Sometimes the TV stations change the time the show is on without warning, so you end up missing it.

I think a Tivo fixes at least two of those, if you want to shell out the money for it. #2 and #3 were why I stopped watching TV.

[lasti]

I haven't watched for years. It was really no big deal. If I'm interested in a series or a movie I watch in internet, go to the movies or buy it on DVD.