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TV free: Thinking outside The Box
Friday, 2 October 2009
It probably sounds really weird, but we don't watch TV. At all.
Our kids watch DVDs, and that's it. I don't think the TV channels are even tuned in.
It wasn't a conscious decision, although a couple of years ago, when I lived in Australia, I did consciously make the choice to remove the TV.
Back then, I pulled out the plug, and shoved the TV in the wardrobe, where it remained for most of a year.
This time around, the decision to not watch TV was fate-inspired.
When we moved into our current rental the reception was awful. We're too cheap to pay to have a guy come and fix it, or to get Pay TV come and stick a dish on our roof. So we do without.
It was unintentional - hardly a decision - but perhaps the single biggest thing we have done to cut our consumption and consumerism.
TV encourages consumerism
You see, because we're not watching ads on TV, and seeing shows where everyone has everything (big houses, great cars, fabulous hair and makeup yada yada) we don't feel the need to have all that ourselves.
Our contentment levels have risen since the TV got de-tuned. Or, rather, wasn't tuned in the first place.
I don't know what's on TV, and really don't care. I'm too busy in real life for "reality TV". And I don't know of anyone who, on their death bed, pronounced that they wish they'd watched more Big Brother or American Idol.
What do we do instead?
For entertainment we sing in choir (I sing four times a week, my husband sings once a week), compose music, write (hi!), play piano and sing together, garden, and play with the kids.
Oh, and read. I adore my library. Do you know, there was a time (not so long ago, either!) when I used to buy every book that I wanted! Now I just go to the library.
If my library hasn't got the book I want, I request it. And the library is awesome at getting books in.
For instance, only a few weeks ago, I requested the book No Impact Man, which they didn't have.
Yesterday, I trotted along to pick up a CD I'd put on hold that had come in, and - guess what? There was No Impact Man waiting for me next to my CD in the HOLDS area. A brand new copy, never read before!
And now my husband is grumpy, because I was still reading, late into the night, when he needed to sleep! Oh well...
TV and society
I've only been living in Dunedin a short while. But already I feel like I belong here. And last night, at pub after choir, I had the joy of introducing some friends to each other who didn't know each other! Me - the newbie in town! I felt honoured and happy to be able to do that!
I think that TV has been a terrible destroyer of society. We all leave work, and go home, and turn on the box, ready to watch other peoples' lives, while forgetting about our own.
As a result, we don't know our neighbours. We don't attend Church. We don't sing in choir. We watch gardening shows but we don't garden. We don't play sport down the road at the local footy club (we'd rather watch the "professionals").
We watch lifestyle shows while neglecting our own lives. We've become fat and lazy and disinterested in our own communities. We've become a world of passive observers and spectators. And I think that's sad.
TV - what's it for, anyway?
How would we know that we had to have a bigger house, and a more expensive car, and lacy underwear, and a racier sex-life - unless all this were not presented to us through the mass media?
If TV is meant to educate and inform and make us happy, it is doing a pretty poor job.
But if TV is meant to make us feel like our own lives are inferior, and help us waste time, and encourage us to create debt by buying STUFF we don't really need - well, it's got a hole in one.
Reality TV?
I don't miss TV. My life is too busy for TV anyway. I don't know how TV watchers ever find the time to turn the thing on, because I sure don't!
Very occasionally, I'll have a night at home alone, and I'll dig out one of my favourite musicals, and put it on, and enjoy it. So I don't think I'm ready to eliminate TV altogether from my life, and sell it. Not just yet.
But I can't say I'd be keen to tune in the TV channels when we move house. I think I'll leave them untuned.
And if that leaves me hopelessly out of touch, well, so be it. If I don't wear the latest fashion, and I don't have my hair the right way, and I don't have the latest shoes, and my house isn't as big as it is supposed to be for my income (or achievable debt level), so be it.
I'm happy. And who needs reality TV anyway, when reality is out there, all around us.
All we have to do is step outside, and dig our hands into the earth, and feel the wind and the rain in our hair and on our skin, and know that this earth is good.
--
Cluttercut - Be the change
5 comments:
I'm slowly trying to wean myself off the number of TV shows I watch, but I don't think TV as such is completely a bad thing. True, there are so many things I could be doing instead of sitting at home in front of the box, but usually at night I'm too tired to interact with others or concentrate on anything much, so I just sit and let myself be entertained. I think that some TV is as much a form of art as music, literature or film - of course there is plenty of crap out there just as with any medium, and the ads are definitely worth avoiding (although in our house it just gives us an excuse to critique and fisk the advertising!) But ideally I'd like to watch my TV shows on DVD, so I can choose when to watch them and not be at the mercy of TV programmers and advertisers :-/
Hear hear - good post!
Although, I do have to note that the internet (surfing, blogging, youtubing) can tend to take the place of TV ...
I still watch about 3 programs a week but thats it. We don't have a dedicated tv - just a computer card or two.
The kids watch a little more but not much. The thing I try to limit is computer games! With varying degrees of failure!! Especially when its wet out.
viv in dunedin
I'm sad to report we watch too much TV. Being married to an introvert makes getting out together to do community things more challenging and I don't really like to go alone. If I'm physically exhausted at the end of the day, I have a harder time concentrating on reading than I'd like. (Maybe as a result of aging plus the annoyance of bifocals?)
I try to be selective in what we watch and not be totally passive. There are cooking and cultural shows on PBS where we learn and get ideas. If we watch a crime show, I try to visually what I would do in a similar situation as the victim. This sort of visualization helps with what I'm learning in my krav maga self-defense classes. And I'll admit to watching a reality show centered on weight loss. It has inspired me to push myself harder on exercise and clean up my eating, so some positive comes as a result.
That said, I would like us to consider no TV once we get moved. We'll have so much to do in a new place that it would be a good time to make this transition. We've done it before and been perfectly happy without.
Hi Octopusgrrl - I don't thing TV as such is a bad thing. I just think it is misguided ;-P
Seriously, there's just too much rubbish on, and it's too easy to sit there, and switch from junk to junk, and there goes your evening.
I come from a family of BIG TV watchers - like, every night, hours of it. I had a TV in my bedroom as a kid, as did my brother (we had five in the house at one stage in a family of four people).
I guess I just see TV these days as one of the biggest problems stopping people living real life. We don't do everything else - real activities - because we're too busy watching. Overall, I can't see that society as a whole would be worse off if TV came to a standstill - and I think we might benefit a whole lot.
Hi Michael - You're right about the net, although it depends how you use it. The net, at least, is two-way - you can input as well as get the output. But schools talk about limiting "screen time", and I think they have a definite point.
Hi Knutty Knitter - I had to get my husband to explain what a computer card is - and I used to be a geek! Augh! I've been a stay at home Mum for too long! ;-)
We haven't got to the computer game stage yet - the kids are too young. I'm dreading it. I'm not one of those parents in favour of banning things, but maybe we just won't ever "find" the money!
Hi Chile - When we went TV-free and shoved it in the wardrobe, I was actually surprised at how I didn't miss it.
But we'd gone TV-free before that (which I forgot about when I wrote the blog post), when we lived in West Virginia for a year, and never bothered buying one. For us it was fairly easy, but I think it depends on the person.
Maybe, if you want to reduce, start by finding outside activities that you both enjoy together, that take you outside the home and away from the box. For us, it was/is choir. Choir is FULL of introverts! Hehe. (Just check out my husband!). But what you do is up to you. The point is, when you're outside the house, you're automoatically having a night off the box.
Then increase those nights out. The more you get active in your community, the less time you have for TV, or inclination you have to watch it. That has worked for me, anyway :-)
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