Not owning a televison - why?

[IdleRich]

i guess i've also got my own internet equivalent of watching crap tv - its easy to waste time on sites that you aren't really that interested in if you aren't careful. does anyone regard their net usage in a similar way sometimes?

Sort of, but only when I'm at work (like now for example) because I don't have internet at home and I consider work pretty much dead time anyway. If I can use the time when I'm been paid in my rubbish job to read about stuff on the internet, order records etc etc than I feel rather pleased with myself.

Even in Italy. Because is out of this world only the thought that you can't have a TV.

That is annoying isn't it. I do resent the fact that "they" assume that you can't live without tv. I had a friend who lived in Mexico for a year without a tv and people that she met were absolutely gobsmacked, far more so than they would be here. I get the impression people don't read so much there as in England although of course I could be wrong.

 

[borderpolice]

I can't say I am as militantly and openly against TV-Watchers as I used to be, but the one thing I CANNOT STAND is TVs in bars or cafes...or buses and public spaces. That Sh*t IRKS me.

this is something that used to irritate me in developing countries. in third world shanty towns you find it so often that the first thing people buy when they have a bit of money is a satellite dish. i though: these people should get their priorities right ...

after a while there, i realised that if you live in poverty, maybe in a small village in a jungle, you most likely have never seen anything other than your village, and possibly a few neighbouring towns. and the familiar does tend to be rather boring and small after a few years. TV is often the only chance these people have to look at other worlds, to see more interesting things. this importance of TV feels absurd for urban westerners who have plenty alternative distraction on offer, but the need for entertainment is an important force in life.

 

[adruu]

very very good point...

side note === I was pretty shocked when some family moved to the states from south india and knew all of the american evangelicals. somehow american megachurches had managed to buy considerable airtime in india. my cousin thought they were celebrities here.

 

[bassnation]

Can't say I ever feel informed by watching TV anymore. Documentary or News just doesnt compare to takign the time to read about an issue, scanning wikipedia/bartletts/reference material...

but it doesn't need to be an either / or situation.

for instance, i'm obsessed with astronomy. i read everything i can from wikipedia to nasa's site in addtion to numerous books - but none of that detracts from how brilliant the BBC "the planets" series was. watching that footage of voyager coupled with computer simulations, astronomers and scientists talking about the science behind it all was an amazing experience - and not one that you could easily get outside of television, packaged in that way. the density of information was immense.

new mediums do not replace old ones, they supplement it and become artforms in themselves.

say what you want about tv, but it is a highly effective medium for imparting information.

 

[nomos]

i guess i've also got my own internet equivalent of watching crap tv - its easy to waste time on sites that you aren't really that interested in if you aren't careful. does anyone regard their net usage in a similar way sometimes?

Yes! It's awful. I waste time on the Internet just like I did flicking through channels however many years ago. I often catch myself clicking through sites that I really have no interest in, or that I've been to several times that day. It's all about procrastination but I think it's worse than my old TV habits because I'm sitting in the same chair staring at the same screen that I should be working on.

Worse, I've experienced a noticeable decline in my attention span which I blame on multiple window/tab browsing habits (I never watched 8 tv shows at once) and working with HTML which makes very non-linear demands on the eyes. When I went back to school I had to re-train my eyes and brain to spend long stretches reading linear texts.

 

[borderpolice]

Yes! It's awful. I waste time on the Internet just like I did flicking through channels however many years ago. I often catch myself clicking through sites that I really have no interest in, or that I've been to several times that day.

agreed. the net is much more addictive than TV because there is always lots of really interesting stuff, and its interactive. i removed net access at home about a year ago. i had real physical withdrawal symptoms for a few days.

 

[borderpolice]

Worse, I've experienced a noticeable decline in my attention span which I blame on multiple window/tab browsing habits (I never watched 8 tv shows at once)

i find myself listening to the radio when making music! one source of sounds is not enough for my brain it seems. i blame it on DJing

 

[owen]

ballard sez that not watching TV is as ignorant as not reading books, in that it cuts you off from an entire artform

i actually do have a telly, but it's broken so that you can only watch videos on it- convenient, really. so i forget, say when at my mum's or suchlike, various infuriating things about TV- ie that adverts are 10 times louder than everything else, the massive quantity of how clean is your house-type dubiousness...and how incredibly boring it is...i used to spend large quantities of time watching music videos, all those beautifully choreographed & edited hype williams fantasias, but now it's settled down into a frankly unnerving endless array of tits, arse, rims, guns etc etc

obviously TV's potential is incredible- if it had even 2 hours a day of stuff as good as the simpsons, or buffy, or the singing detective, or the century of the self (etc) then i might think twice about my non-ownership. as it is i don't think i'm missing much.

 

[bassnation]

ballard sez that not watching TV is as ignorant as not reading books, in that it cuts you off from an entire artform

i actually do have a telly, but it's broken so that you can only watch videos on it- convenient, really. so i forget, say when at my mum's or suchlike, various infuriating things about TV- ie that adverts are 10 times louder than everything else, the massive quantity of how clean is your house-type dubiousness...and how incredibly boring it is...i used to spend large quantities of time watching music videos, all those beautifully choreographed & edited hype williams fantasias, but now it's settled down into a frankly unnerving endless array of tits, arse, rims, guns etc etc

obviously TV's potential is incredible- if it had even 2 hours a day of stuff as good as the simpsons, or buffy, or the singing detective, or the century of the self (etc) then i might think twice about my non-ownership. as it is i don't think i'm missing much.

last time i looked on freeview there was history, art programmes, natural world / science documentaries and more every single night of the week. this would be on channels such as BBC3, BBC4, More4 etc. simpsons is on every single night.

in fact, as an aside, on sky there are entire channels dedicated to simpsons / futurama / buffy etc. plus channel u for grime, uk hh, etc. quality controls not always there for channel u but what the hell.

just having the terrestial channels might be different, but come on - its not realistic to argue theres nothing good on telly as this is blatantly and verifiably untrue. thats not to say there isn't crap, because there is and rather a lot of it - but the same could be said for any artform. you have to select what you want from it rather than consuming everything without discernment.

 

[owen]

channel U you have to wade through 19 earnest uk hip-hop videos just to get at 3 minutes of bruza...

obv freeview is better, but i'm a bit suspicious of this alleged abundance. sure there are loads of history channels, but 90% of them are showing documentaries about hitler; and you may well get a channel for the simpsons, but half of it will be taken up with people loudly trying to sell you stuff. and please don't bring up the middlebrow pish of BBC4 in TV's defence...

(perhaps one of TV's problems is that its ease induces 'consuming everything without discernment'?)

 

[IdleRich]

"But the same could be said for any artform. you have to select what you want from it rather than consuming everything without discernment"

Pretty much impossible to argue with this. Lots of people do just seem to consume without discernment though, why is this? Is it because it requires the minimum amount of effort to sit there and watch tv as opposed to reading a book or looking through things on the internet?
It certainly seems that some of the people on this thread were so worried that they would be unable to apply discernment that they had to get rid of their tv.

 

[bassnation]

channel U you have to wade through 19 earnest uk hip-hop videos just to get at 3 minutes of bruza...

obv freeview is better, but i'm a bit suspicious of this alleged abundance. sure there are loads of history channels, but 90% of them are showing documentaries about hitler; and you may well get a channel for the simpsons, but half of it will be taken up with people loudly trying to sell you stuff. and please don't bring up the middlebrow pish of BBC4 in TV's defence...

lol, point accepted about the hitler documentaries - surely everyone now knows about every possible nugget of information on wwII?

and yes, there are commercial breaks - more frequent on sky than on freeview, but still there. you could always help increase carbon emissions by joining the coordinated tea making effort when they occur. i don't think this is a reason for not watching, but thats just me.

and i find some of the programming on bbc4 interesting. tonight they've got some programmes examing funeral rituals throughout history which might be ok. does this make me the worst kind of middlebrow cretin?

and this is not even taking into account all the fantastic comedies there have been over the years. besides, if you don't watch it on a regular basis, how can you judge it properly?

(perhaps one of TV's problems is that its ease induces 'consuming everything without discernment'?)

only if you allow it. just cos its sat there doesn't mean its in control.

 

[bassnation]

Pretty much impossible to argue with this. Lots of people do just seem to consume without discernment though, why is this? Is it because it requires the minimum amount of effort to sit there and watch tv as opposed to reading a book or looking through things on the internet?
It certainly seems that some of the people on this thread were so worried that they would be unable to apply discernment that they had to get rid of their tv.

i find my attention starts to wander after sitting there for an hour watching tv. i can't help it, have to go and do something else.

 

[Jezmi]

Pretty much impossible to argue with this. Lots of people do just seem to consume without discernment though, why is this? Is it because it requires the minimum amount of effort to sit there and watch tv as opposed to reading a book or looking through things on the internet?
It certainly seems that some of the people on this thread were so worried that they would be unable to apply discernment that they had to get rid of their tv.

Well people watch/use the tv in different ways, example -- At my friends home the tv is on all day, but hardly watched. That family is totally insensitive to it. Because I hardly watch TV, when I´m there I´m able to cease a conversation in midsentence to watch tv.......and not even notice that it happens. My eyes and ears are hooked to what is happening on the telly, and the person I was talking to has to snap me out of it.
That sensitivity is the reason why the intended 15 minutes, to get my mind off the day before I go to bed, turns into 1,5 hours.

 

[IdleRich]

"Well people watch/use the tv in different ways, example -- At my friends home the tv is on all day, but hardly watched. That family is totally insensitive to it. Because I hardly watch TV, when I´m there I´m able to cease a conversation in midsentence to watch tv.......and not even notice that it happens. My eyes and ears are hooked to what is happening on the telly, and the person I was talking to has to snap me out of it."

Surely by that reasoning you would be better off buying a tv and getting used to it so that you weren't so sensitive. Or do you find that that sensitivity is useful when you watch something that you are genuinely interested in?

 

[Jezmi]

Surely by that reasoning you would be better off buying a tv and getting used to it so that you weren't so sensitive. Or do you find that that sensitivity is useful when you watch something that you are genuinely interested in?

I don´t think it´s that simple, but I don´t think it´s worth it to leave the tv on for hours and hours so that I watch less! I don´t think that sensitivity is either useful or otherwise. It is what it is and I have to find out works for me.

 

[francesco]

BLACK FLAG "TV Party"



T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!

We're gonna have a T.V. party tonight!

Alright!

We're gonna have a T.V. party alright!

Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

All our friends are gonna hang out here tonight

Alright!

We're gonna pass out on the couch alright

Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don't talk about anything else
We don't wanna know!
We're dedicated
To our favorite shows!

We sit glued to the T.V. set all night
And every night!
Why go into the outside world at all?
It's a fright!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

T.V. news shows what it's really like out there
It's a scare!

You can go out if you want
I wouldn't dare!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don't talk about anything else
We don't wanna know!
We're dedicated
To our favorite shows!

I wouldn't be without me T.V. for a day
Or even for a minute!

Don't even bother to use my brain anymore
There's nothing left in it!

Wait a minute! My T.V. set doesn't work! It's broken!
What are we gonna do tonight? This isn't fair!
We're hurtin'

We've got nothing left to do
With no T.V. and just a couple of brews

What are we gonna talk about?
I don't know!
We're gonna miss our favorite shows!
NO T.V. PARTY TONIGHT!