« Who You Gonna Call? Intelligence Busters! | Main | Equal Justice or Liberal Perversion? »
January 08, 2006
Life Without Television
"They put an off button on the TV for a reason. Turn it off . . . I really don't watch much TV." ~ President George W. Bush, C-SPAN interview, January 2005
Just how long does it take to recover from Reality TV Syndrome? How often do we hear people pleading with us to get away from these computers and get out into the world? Have you noticed that we rarely, if ever, hear the same people saying anything about extracting ourselves from in front of our televisions? Television is a past time (or a waste of time) that many of us take for granted, both in loss of productivity and in the effects we suffer from allowing our focus to be molded by the media.
Eight months into a TV-free lifestyle, and I am just starting to realize what a detriment TV had become for me. I do not expect or encourage others to adopt my TV free lifestyle, but the benefits to me have become increasingly apparent over the past eight months. Do not get me wrong, we still have the actual TVs: three of them to be exact. Yet, they are now just rarely used DVD players, instead of the idiot boxes that they once were. What kind of TV viewer was I? I was a sports, news, HGTV, Discovery, TLC, PBS kind of watcher- in that order of total viewing time spent. What programs do I miss the most, eight months later? I only find myself missing certain sporting events, but that is all. Is it worth the $60 a month to watch a few football or baseball games? I think I will continue my personal TV turn-off experiment.
In September of 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that TV viewing accounted for approximately half of both American men and women's leisure time (see chart). The Time Use Survey revealed that TV viewing was third in total daily use of time, behind only time spent working and sleeping. I am certain that time spent in front of the computer may soon give TV a run for its money, but TV is still, by far, the most culturally favored use of one's time. It is easy to find resources and education material examining the effects of television and video game violence on our young people, but what of the general effects of television addiction on young and old alike? I can only speak from personal experience, but I feel my life and productivity have greatly improved without the ball and chain of television in my life. The time I spend here on the computer is certainly time better spent than mindless TV viewing, and I do not waste all of my leisure time here... I just have more of it, because I have shut off my TV.
American Time Use Survey (ATUS) 2003
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dept. of Labor, U.S. Government
American Time Use Survey (ATUS) 2003
Released September 2004
Related reading: The TV Turnoff Network: http://www.tvturnoff.org/
Posted by capecodcyclist at January 8, 2006 06:05 AM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)