Hi! My Name Is Bert and I'm A TV Junkie

Okay, personal confession time.  If I have one pet peeve in life it’s that damned television that sits in my living room…no, the one in my office…no, the one in the guest room…no, the one in the bedroom…no,…the one in my car….  I think you get the picture.  I have this love/hate thing going on with my television.

Television is wonderfully entertaining.  It provides me with a way to get my mind off day’s concerns by telling me jokes and sharing funny stories with me.  It gives me the news of the day so that I can be current on the state of my world.  It gives me music.  It warns me when bad weather and tornadoes are heading my way.  It shows me new ways to decorate my house and landscape.  It’s a window that lets me peer into the lives of others.  Of all inventions (besides the computer, of course), the television, I think, has impacted my life more than any other thing.

Although it has the power to do good, television is eating up my free time and I’m getting little to show for it.  It’s not television’s fault, it’s mine.  It does have an “off” button, but I don’t use it.  I sit down in front of it and, before I know it, I’m hypnotized by that big bright screen.  It’s on 24/7 in my house when we’re home.  We use it as white noise.  Although I’m motivated to try to do without it being on so much,  my wife, worse than I am, requires to hear it all the time, including overnight while she sleeps.  I’ve tried turning it off when she falls asleep.  I’ve tried setting the sleep timer.  But as soon as the television goes off, she shoots up out of bed saying something like, “What was that?”  She then will say, “Who turned my television off?”   I’m productive enough, but I keep thinking how much more I could do if the television wasn’t on so much.

I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this, as many conversations in my workplace center on who got voted off of American Idol this week, who the Bachelor chose, which character got killed off on “24”, and who Donald Trump hired on The Apprentice.

So, taking a cue from Steve Pavlina, I’m going on a TV diet.  For thirty days, I’m reducing the television viewing to the vital few programs that I really want to watch.  During this time, I’ll gauge my productivity to see the results.

Any other takers out there?

TV-B-Gone From Cornfield Electronics -- Rants via http://4loves.com/mexitext/2004/10/turn-off-your-tv.htm

Comments

[Kenneth Kirksey]

I recently stared doing something similar. I have my TiVo set to record my "must-see" programs, but I don't watch any TV until after 9:30 or 10 PM. That the time my mind starts winding down for the day and I'm too tired to concentrate on reading or other serious work. So far it's been working well. I'm getting more done, and the time limit forces me to only watch the programs that I really want to see.

[Brock Tice]

I quit watching when I was 13 and I've never looked back. Your life will be so much better for it if you can pull it off. That was, I guess, 9 years ago, and I haven't missed it once.

[Bert]

Thanks for the comments! My DVR will allow me to do a one-time setting for the "essentials" and I've got to get rid of the rest. I must admit, I'll have to make a lifestyle change because of my wife, because I think I can make the break better than she can. She'll have to come kicking and screaming, I think. More time out of the house will force her to do that. We already go dancing Friday nights. So I'll have to schedule more "quality time" with her at the gym, concerts, dancing, museums, etc.

[Teri Lester]

I have had an iron rule since before my kids were born that we could only have one TV in the house. That is because I grew up in an affluent family, with more TVs than people, and said family was completely dysfunctional - nobody ever talked to anybody because everybody could go off on their own and watch what they wanted.

One TV, and no rules about who watches what when. If someone wants to watch a particular program, they have to negotiate with everyone else.

As a result my children have the negotiating skills of a Wall Street M&A lawyer. We have very few squabbles over the TV, nobody has ever had the chance to really build up any "must-see TV" addictions, and we still have that bad-weather-and-news functionality.

(We do have five computers - one each.)

[George B.]

We threw all three of ours out of the house over 20 years ago -- we stopped "cold turkey." There are to many things to do that I can't imagine ever bringing a TV back into the house again.

[John Richardson]

Great topic Bert. I watch very little TV. My only weekly addiction is Nascar, which I record and try to watch at a convenient time. I find that my computer time is much more productive than TV, since it is interactive. I can create things, write things, and communicate with others. I love to create interesting photos in Photoshop. When I show them at work or to friends, the number one response is "you have too much time on your hands". I usually just smile, but I realize that we all only have 24 hours a day. It's amazing how much time most households spend watching TV.

I often wonder what great things people could write, paint, draw, plan, or do if they would just turn off the TV. I think the world would be a better place. We could watch their movies, view their pictures and read their books instead of the programmed ones most people watch.

An old shareware analogy. We should start uploading instead of always downloading. Something to think about.

John

[Bert]

Reading all of your comments makes me really jazzed about turning off the tube! One comment that was made by someone I knew (I'm sure he heard it from somewhere else) was that many people spend a half-hour watching "Wheel of Fortune" and learn a lot about turn letters but nothing about improving your life. Wow! Something to think about.

[Bert]

Ok, Sunday report--

No TV...None. Instead, talked with family (we also had the sons' girlfriends visiting), went flying for a few hours, took the wife and my mother (who's visiting) to dinner, showed my mother around town, went shopping with the wife, and came back home and helped the wife make snacks for the crew. Quite a full day...didn't miss TV a bit.

:)

[Dave Pinn]

Your greatest weapon against the TV is the weekly TV guide. Mark on it the programs that you will watch. It works because you can be sure that, when not watching the box, you are not missing anything important.

[Molly]

At the risk of being judgmental ... it just can't be healthy to keep the TV on all night. Surely the two of you aren't sleeping as deeply as you would without it.

It sounds like your wife needs some level of predictable noise to drown out out random nighttime noises. I'm the same way. Perhaps you should try a white noise machine. You could watch TV or leave it on until you want to sleep (or have fallen asleep), turn the white noise machine on, and then turn off the TV.