It’s been about 7 months since we sold our television.
And can I just be honest?
I love it.
I had a lot of ideas about why we were going to get rid of television. And all of those have proven to be legitimate – my place feels bigger, we’ve appreciated the money we’ve saved, we discovered we didn’t really care what happened with Jim and Pam, I didn’t feel quite so fat or depressed because I don’t look like a fourteen year old and we have had time for the things that really matter.
But there have been other benefits.
I’ve discovered that I love the silence. I love the quiet. It’s peaceful. No background noise, constantly distracting us from each other. I thought that I would rely on music more and more but actually, I’ve come to rely on it less and less. When the kids nap, I just enjoy the silence.
But can I just be honest?
One of the greatest things about no television is this – NO NEWS!
There. I said it.
As you know, I’m a rabid politics junkie and also follow international news very closely. I certainly am not one to stick my head in the sand. I don’t ignore the news. I just have switched from watching news to reading news. I read the newspaper. I read stories online. I read news magazines. And print journalism just doesn’t have the smack-down aspect of what passes for broadcast journalism these days. I don’t miss Nancy Grace. I don’t miss Papa Bear’s rage and sarcasm. I don’t miss “panel interviews”. I don’t miss Keith Olbermann’s righteous anger. I don’t miss the endless car chases or “breaking news” about planes with a wheel missing and the constant “molehills into mountains”. I don’t miss the anger or the screaming, the alarmist news stories, the fear-mongering. I don’t miss the people in white tank-tops, gesturing to where the cops showed up. The sensationalism is gone from my house and I couldn’t be happier about it. I think if half of the world would turn off what passes for 24-hour news these days – whether it be Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann or Mike Duffy – we’d all be a lot happier and prone to getting along.
So we listen to public radio for news, traffic and weather in the morning for about 15 or 20 minutes. I check the headlines. And we’re done. No fear. No angst. No anger. No screaming. No interrupting. No crazy graphics and “crawl” or 80,000 images competing for my attention. My children aren’t exposed to stories of rape and murder and kidnappings and war. I can keep them innocent for just a while longer.
Aaahhhh.
Another thing I’ve loved is how Anne is not exposed to ads. When Christmas rolled around, people would ask her “What do you want for Christmas?” And Anne wouldn’t get it. Because for her, Christmas was about family, not gifts. Sure, we had presents under the tree and she enjoyed looking at them. But she was caught up in the Christmas lights and the tree and the “pretty nice” things everywhere she looked. So she’d respond “Nothing”. She didn’t “want” anything because no one (i.e. the TV) had told her that she wanted it.
Brian and I have read so much and talked so much. It’s lovely.
And finally, I’ve completely fallen off the celebrity bandwagon. I don’t really care about those people much anymore. No more Hollywood gossip or snarky remarks about already-deathly-thin-actresses-and-their-maybe-baby-bumps. It’s nice to not care or be in the know about such silliness. With the TV, you can’t help but be exposed to the crazy. But, even though I may read that John Travolta has lost his son (so sad), unless it’s in the mainstream news, I usually don’t bother to read it. Just isn’t interesting anymore.
I am surprised by how little I am bored. I’m surprised at how much I don’t miss TV. I don’t miss the shows. I don’t miss the ads. I don’t miss its unseen influence in our lives. I think Brian has missed it for sports but even there, he’s adjusted, watching games occasionally online. But not often. Even the sports addiction is gone.
I still like to catch Relocation, Relocation if I’m at my parents house. We occasionally watch a movie on the computer. I allow Anne to watch Dora the Explorer or Elmo DVDs occasionally, especially if I’m nursing Joe and need to buy 20 minutes. I’m not a dogmatist. But overall, I couldn’t be happier with the absence of the television. This experiment is going well.
