It's been a month & a half now since we got rid of our TV. Becoming TV-less was not jarring enough that the date really stuck in my mind--I had to search my blog here to figure out how long it had been. At first, there were a few evenings where I wished I had it to turn on & zone out to. However now that I've got back into my old rhythm of having three or four books on the go at any one time (not including course reading) I've always got something to do those evenings where I just want to relax. I've just read Gibson's latest novel, Zero History; I'm thinking of making myself a hat from the patterns in Saturday Night Hat; reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on my phone; & I'm looking forward to picking up Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, plus The Year of the Flood.
If I do have a hankering for TV, streaming on demand from various show & network sites is a decent substitute. I've never really cared how big the screen was, so seeing shows on my teeny netbook doesn't bother me. I find I'm still watching a few shows a week, some that we used to watch on the boob tube, like Dragon's Den, The Rick Mercer Report & the occasional episode of House, some that we didn't because we didn't have cable, like Consumed, on HGTV. Sadly, I'm still subjected to four or five sets of commercials when I stream from the show or network site, but I think it's a bit less advertising than on TV. Also, I will just watch the one show & then do something else, unlike when we had a TV: I'd turn it on well before the show time & leave it on afterward. I often found myself peeling myself off the couch after 1am, during Conan or Colbert.
I find we're listening to the radio more now too, specifically the CBC. It's nice to have it on in the background while we're eating or doing stuff in the kitchen. The radio takes so much less of my concentration--I don't lose hours of my life to sitting in front of it the way I used to with the visual distraction of the TV. (Sadly, I think some of the time 'saved' from not watching TV is now being lost to Facebook. But some is spent blogging, so I think there's progress!) What I find interesting is Sprout's reaction to the radio. He seems to completely ignore any talking, but when music comes on he pays attention, sometimes dancing & singing along. Whereas, when there's a TV on in the room he's in, he's drawn to it like a moth to a flame. While I don't think TV is going to be quite as dangerous for him as a flame to a moth, I very strongly believe it's not a healthy thing for anyone, especially babies & children.
Now some questions for you:
How much TV do you watch in a week? (Be honest!)
Have you ever considered getting rid of your TV, or maybe scheduling some TV-free times each week?
What was the last thing you read? Got any book recommendations?
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If you download the AdBlocker app for your browser that should get rid of most (if not all) of those annoying commercials. I know it definitely works on the CBC website, during all my hours of watching Coronation St ;)
ReplyDeleteWe have a TV, but got rid of cable a while ago. Between Netflix and online I watch a fair number of shows and movies. I've been working fulltime lately so I'm definitely watching less (maybe an hour or two), but on days off I've been known to watch definitely too much (like the 12 episodes of Sons of Anarchy a few Sundays ago).
As for books, I'm just about to start The Angels Game, which is a sort of prequel to The Shadow of the Wind, which I highly recommend. Kind of a terrible title, but it's a wonderful story, by a Spanish author.