The total average time per household (watching TV) in 2005-06 was eight hours and 14 minutes per day. – Reuters (September 22, 2006)
What’s that sound you hear?
Silence?
In my house? During primetime? Yep….
There’s no longer a TV in my house.
We sold our TV et al to a young man in Chilliwack this week. We have effectively killed the TV in our house. (I have to admit that we pocketed a bit more money in the deal than I expected so that will nicely pay for Brian’s class this summer. Plus we’ll save about $1200 a year because we’re no longer paying for cable. All good things.)
I’m not a big TV hater. I’m not a big culture/media hater. I actually really enjoy pop culture. And I’m not a big snob about it all either, like somehow its “below me”. It’s just that I’ve never been a big TV watcher at all. My parents had very strict rules about TV in our house in terms of what we could watch and how much (30 minutes a day, max). We were the kids that were always outside or playing. I don’t really remember having the TV as a big part of my life at any point. The first time I really got into a show was in university when we turned into Friends junkies. I even watched the first season of Survivor and loved it. But then it got boring and formulaic so I quit after Season 2. I liked The Biggest Loser a lot but I got tired of it. I know that the majority of people have a much stronger relationship with their entertainment – for instance, Brian points out that in the summertime, he came in every day at 11 to watch a show called Chips. There are people I know that plan their week by the TV, as in, “Thursday nights are ER, The Office, Friends and Scrubs…Friday nights are American Idol…” But in our house, we didn’t actually watch a lot of shows. I even gave up on the one or two shows I had lately like The Office (just got too “out there” and unrealistic). Brian loves sports so we watched a lot of hockey and football.
When we first got married, we talked very seriously about not having a TV. We decided to buy one because Ray Bourque was making a run for the Stanley Cup with the Avs and we wanted to watch (goes to show how long ago that was…). Off and on, for the next seven years, we’d discuss either cutting cable or getting rid of it altogether. Then when Brian went back to school, we were going to get rid of it again. So it’s not really a new thing for us.
I always thought we kind of kept it around because Brian wanted to watch sports. But he’s really not as into it as he used to be. The past 2-3 years, he’s stopped watching so much sports. Heck, even on Nebraska game day, he doesn’t always watch or listen to the game online. He didn’t even do fantasy football this year. He just seemed to shift from being an avid sports guy to a guy that likes to play and watch sports in moderation. So when he said, at the height of playoffs, “let’s get rid of it” I figured he meant it.
We turned it off for a couple of weeks to see if we liked it. Or if we were being pretentious and weird. But we discovered we liked the extra time. We liked the quiet. We liked being outside. And we didn’t miss it. but we were surprised at how much, for two people that didn’t think they watched a lot of TV, it was on. We were surprised at how much we watched when we stopped. So after three weeks, we listed it on craigslist and sold it.
We finally decided to go for it and be “TV-less” for a season for several reasons.
1. We were sick of the TV itself. We just got tired of seeing it. Because we’re in such a small, narrow family area, the TV seemed to dominate the room. It wasn’t behind a cupboard or in the corner. It somehow became the focal point and I hated that. I just didn’t like that, even when it wasn’t on, it ruled the room.
2. We noticed that the TV would be on but no one was watching it. We’d turn it on and just leave it on. We didn’t even have “our shows” that we loved and wanted to watch. But the TV was on almost every evening.
3. We didn’t want Anne watching shows for entertainment or substituting shows for playtime. I didn’t want her to grow up thinking that Dora is her best friend or greatest teacher. I don’t really have a beef with Sesame Street or Mr. Dress-Up (heck, I’ll probably buy a few DVDs and let her watch them on the computer now and again) but I just didn’t want her day to revolve around “Hi-Five at 11, Clifford at 8:30…Mummy, I want cartoons on!” Plus I always hate when a kid has lots of “brand name” stuff such as when their room looks like Barbie Princess threw up in there or every toy from Dora has to be bought. I kind of hate the idea of brand names or TV-based role models like Hannah Montana etc.
4. We got sick of paying for cable. When you’re on one income in a high-cost-of-living area, every bit matters. And spending $100 a month on cable was pissing me off….
5. ….especially because nothing is on! Seriously. We’d try to watch TV but I didn’t like most of the shows. How many reruns of Friends and Simpsons can one watch?
6. We didn’t want to invite anymore “consumerism” into the house. Being that I’m in marketing/advertising, I recognise that this is highly ironic. But I probably have an even higher sensitivity to marketing messages. The average person sees 4,000 messages/ads a day. I’d like to cut down on that in our home. I’m sick of this attitude that you have to spend money or shop or buy things to be happy. So I’d rather not see every ad.
7. Brian read this book called “Amusing Ourselves to Death” about how everything has to entertain. He didn’t like that. They come to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death . . . television, when it becomes commercialized and profit-based, tends to trivialize and dehumanize our lives. So I became interested in this idea of television as a two-edged sword, that it can be a great medium for spreading information and understanding between peoples, but when it’s a tool of our slavish adherence to the incumbent philosophy that the free market is the God that we should all bow down to, it’s a very dangerous medium.
8. I got a bit tired of beautiful people and unrealistic expectations. Is there anyone acting that isn’t a model?
9. 24 hours news stations are like fingernails on a blackboard to me. We simply can’t stand to even see CNN or Fox News any longer, let alone watch it. It’s crossed from the ridiculous to the horrible. Since when is war entertainment? Since when do we need to spend 4 hours on OJ?
10. We want to have a home that encourages imagination and creativity. I have started to think that too much television might make me stupid. My mum has some pictures of me at about the age of 3 watching TV. My face is slack, my mouth hanging open, sprawled on the floor with a glazed look in my eyes. She always says that look is why she never let me watch TV. I think about it sometimes, how I must look when watching TV, and I don’t want Anne or our other children to look like that. Like some mindless thing being fed the values of media.
11. From a Christian perspective, I guess I feel like I’m tired of having everyone else’s values foisted on me. I’m not talking about anything lame like a “homosexual agenda” (who even says that?) but more things like consumerism and materialism. Unrealistic relationships. Stereotypes. Petty things being the focus. So on. The things I value are pretty different so why am I feeding my spirit with such things?
12. Finally, I think it takes away from other things. I’d rather we read. I’d rather work on projects. I’d even rather chore around. I’d rather play with Anne. I’d rather be outside. I’d rather play games. Heck, I’d even rather be bored and have to think of something else. I just started to feel like it was a time-sucker.
I’m not saying we’ll never have a TV in our house. Heck, we still own one (an archaic 27″ in storage). But for right now, we just wanted a break. And it made sense for us.
I have a hunch I’m going to be bored. And I’ll be surprised how much we actually watched the darn thing. But press on!
