Who *doesn't* watch TV?

however, I do see TV occasionally - at work, at friends/relatives houses, etc.

I do kind of worry that the interweb can be become as intellectually corrosive as TV, for all its veneer of interactivity.

I was never one of these watch-it-because-it's-there types, so I don't really miss it. I read a lot, listen to music or the radio and quite frequently (too frequently really) have a spliff, stare into space and fall asleep.

The only thing I do miss is beeing able to join in with all the 'did you see ...?' conversations. That said most times I hadn't seen the programme in question anyway.

Last thing I actually made a point of watching was The Century Of The Self.

As I have Sky I watch a huge anmount of football, I'd watch it every day of I could, but I try not to watch too much nonsense and instead try and find gems on the food, travel and sports channels.

Of course, when bored or in need of music, there is the wanking MTV option.

Now THAT'S what I call interactive cable!

It is easy to dismiss people based on their television habits, but in my defense, in between taking classes and work, I only get to spend an hour or so each day to myself. I've been too stressed to concentrate on reading a book for pleasure in that time (when I start a book I like to spend far longer than an hour on it). So tv becomes a nice little diversion, a way to cleanse the palette of all the worries I have right now.

I actually look forward to being done with classes later this week, so I will have more time to spend on creative things -- I tend to lose interest in television at times like that.

also, i don't like TV news, in all its infotainment glory. CNN news items just terrify me.

Sam, I don't have any cable channels and I don't often hear my new music on TV. However, the GYM has MTV which is where I heard Holly Valances new single and made me do an extra five minutes on the treadmill so I could hear that (and 'Lazy' which is NOT good gym mewsic) - I tend to be reliant on friends recommendations and hearing music in pubs/friends gaffs/gym.

I probably watch too many films. The community aspect (human contact - something shared to talk about/at) is something I like the most about TV.

I remember a barber once saying to me something like, "You don't have a TV? You must really have to work hard to entertain yourself." I don't find it's much of an effort. Since getting internet access, I have to admit that I use it much the same way others might use the TV. Sometimes it is something to do when I am too tired to read the books I would like to read, which is often. But I also use it in more focused ways at times.

It was very strange not having a TV during after the 9/11 attack. I did feel a sense of being cut off from the people around me because of that.

It's difficult not to feel disconnected from human contact. It's precisely why I don't like to watch a lot of TV. Somehow, I feel lazy. Computer interaction is totally different, for me: for the most part, you aren't "watching" the monitor; nothing happens unless you _do_ something.

Oddly enough, when I had cable a few years ago, I watched it a lot more...if you call Bravo "watching TV".

Since I'm moving though, I do wonder whether I'll miss the convenience of having it.

So it's a Golden Age for TV. Does "Kill Your TV" still resonate? And with so much quality programming, is there still a limit to how many hours of viewing can be enriching or healthful? How do you define quality TV?

if you ask me the only quality tv is sport. i prefer the radio.

Been without for three years now and still don't miss it.

Who needs a TV when there's YouTube?

So it's a Golden Age for TV

it is? wasn't this a couple of years ago? I would agree with, say, 2005, when Buffy, the Sopronos, 6 feet under, gilmore girls, Lost, arrested development, deadwood were all on (if they were all all in 2005, it seems like they were), but not now.

funny tv is better on dvd - btw they took away my stolen cable

I don't watch TV on TV.

i don't watch TV, just hulu sometimes.

akm, yes, but TV is still 1100% better than it was 10-15 years ago imo, when the anti-TV sentiment was running so hot

i watch sports and i download shows

lost is still on yo

does watching sports count? i watch a ton of hockey and college basketball, nothing else

the interthing replaced TV as a source of mindless entertainment long long LONG ago

tv on the internet.

justin.tv <----awz 4 sports

Going on ten years without TV. Definitely glad not to have the extra distraction while in law school -- the internet alone is bad enough.

I enjoy TV most on DVD. Although there's plenty of good distractions on regular television.

I watch a lot, usually while doing something else, knitting, reading, etc.

i pretty much watch all my tv shows on the computer these days

i really missed cnn et al during the campaign

I haven't had a TV since I left home 9ish years ago.

Home entertainment system is surely one of the biggest pluses of adulthood.

funny tv is better on dvd

I'll agree with this. This is the first year I've been watching The Office as it originally airs, and the commercials sort of ruin the momentum. Half the time I miss it and watch it on Hulu the next day, anyway.

lived in a flat w/o tv in 05 and it completely killed the habit...only watch sports on tv now.

I hardly watch any television, but a lot of that is because I only get reception on one channel (Fox, ugh), and a lot of the time it's fuzzy and makes buzzing noises. So I'm in the TV on DVD crowd, which is fine with me.

i don't watch tv but i would, i guess. but now i've gone so long without it that when i watch it i don't really understand it and i think how can people watch this? mostly i mean how do people watch gray's anatomy but i guess that's different because not all tv is quite that bad?

lord goddam pussy ass tv pussy bitches please step up my god

sorry that should be "tv watching bitches"

now there's almost too many good shows. like i still haven't watched mad men i heard that is awesome....don't have enough time!

no i like tv though, i am not a tv pussy bitch. i like shows about murderers and i like intervention.

I only rly watch DVDs, I'll get seasons of TV shows on DVD if I can, avoids ads and you can watch at leisure. You have to also remember that cable doesn't have a big takeup in AU, and we get new TV series so delayed and then the commercial networks screw up the programming (play half a season, drop it, etc) that its just easier to get it on DVD (or torrent it if youre impatient, but I dont bother).

I occasionally watch Neighbours and the 7pm news when I get home but thats about all.

good grief this thread fuck yall

i have a few shows i watch regularly if i'm at home when they're on - basically office, 30 rock, and how i met your mother. i'll watch the simpsons or seinfeld or whatever while i'm eating dinner. i have the tv on while i'm working in the morning though i'm not really watching closely: they show an hour of roseanne at 8, followed by perry mason. yeah i watch tv

I watch tons of television and love it tons. And find sanctimonious blowhards who can't "understand" television the worst examples of humanity.

:)

wtf that isn't even what i meant. i mean if you stop watching tv for a 6 months or so and come back to it, you would feel that way too

I haven't had cable or watched TV in my own space since 1997.

I happily indulge if I have free time if I have a motel/hotel room, though.

And find sanctimonious blowhards who can't "understand" television the worst examples of humanity.

I hardly think anyone in this thread has been anything like this!

i watch lots of tv shows, but since i got my pvr i never watch them at the time they're on

i have the tv on a lot, but there's only a few things that i make a point of watching. usually prefer to read a book or use the internets at the same time. still it can be a distraction; i could maybe live without it? do like it for sporting events and the like, though.

Yeah, I was just being a jerk. It's not so much on ILX, but off ILX I run into people everyday who explain to me how much "above" television they are. Pisses me off.

/oblig Onion "weaned off glass teat" article link

those phony baloney "television? oh, yes, i believe i've seen a picture of one somewhere, how quaint, tell me about some of your little shows" people who ruin things for decent hardworking non-t.v. watching folks. those people who never admit that pop culture even touches their air or something.

is this an East Coast thing? People who don't watch TV on the West Coast usually are really shy about it, or just shrug... no one makes a big deal out of not watching TV here.

It must be. They are crawling all over here.

i've really got back into MASH lately....loving that show right now.

maybe! i only really know the east coast and there have always been a lot of smug t.v. haterz around if you know where to look.

There was an article about some research about this in the Times yesterday or today. Don't know if I buy it.

Yeah, I was just being a jerk. It's not so much on ILX, but off ILX I run into people everyday who explain to me how much "above" television they are. Pisses me off.

That attitude became a joke on metafilter way back when I had time to read it, the meme started out as "Is that (pop cultural reference) something I would need a TV to know about?" and became, in true meme fashion, "Is X something I would need a Y to know about?" spawning months of...well, maybe not hilarity.

to people who are all smug abt shunning tv im always all arent you interested in culture your culture at all dont u like moving pictures

look i just want to know why pushing daisies gets a second season and even showtime wont buy my 70s hot pilot orgy show

not everybody who shuns tv is actually smug about it however if you let it slip that you don't watch hardly any tv ppl will always go "you smug bastard, thinkin you're better than us"

i know plenty of people who don't watch tv or went thru a no tv period. some were definitely smug, most were just "eh, too busy / i stopped watching in college / my tv broke and i never replaced it"
i have never seen these people called out for being smug ever.

I had free cable for like 10 years, and lost it over the summer...now, when you have free cable for 10 years, you just can't start paying for it...so, I don't watch TV at home anymore...and I don't miss it a bit, but whenever I hear myself 'splainin' this to people, I think "my, but aren't we a smug bastard!"

Yeah I'm a smug bastard but not about TV -- as anyone who's seen me fall asleep gazing at food porn in front of the Giada De Laurentis/Rachel Ray/Ina Garten line-up on the weekends.

i love tv with all my heart

yeah tv is great fuck the haters.
some of us don't have satisfying lives, so we need this shit.

i am going to get a tv in august 2009

i sometimes watch the channel 4 news and the simpsons.

THAT'S IT

l have always loved t.v. and i have always watched a ton. i've always been jealous of people who can live without. i would get a lot more done if i didn't watch. i do watch less now than i have in the past. that's for sure. though that election had me going for months on end.

when we first moved here we didn't have t.v. for about six months or maybe longer and it was great. i read a ton and wrote a lot. ended up listening to a buttload of npr on the radio. but i was also happy when we did finally get cable.

when i was younger i could easily read a book while watching, but now i'm slower and my multi-tasking abilities ain't what they used to be. i do paint paintings when i watch t.v. though. and read lots of magazines while watching.

i used to love friday night tv as a kid, channel four and bbc 2 would be SLAMMIN.

takeover tv, the word, don't forget your toothbrush, bottom, harry enfield, fast show, fist of fun, adam and joe, red dwarf, some foreign language film where you'd see a lady's bits, eurotrash, cheapo 80s sci-fi and horror, weird animated shorts, reruns of classics like blackadder or the young ones...

ride my bike around after tea for a bit, then watch these gems on my goldstar portable.

OMG friday night tv when i was a kid (7-8ish) was so great. i get mcdonalds or KFC and my mom would go out til 3am w/her boyfriend and id watch THE LOVE BOAT

TV? I only read it for the articles, I never look at the naked pictures.

Not having Tv for me is like enjoying cheese (the food) but otherwise rarely eating it. BUT, Upon consuming the cheese after a long break,, it's so lively and enjoyable. Whereas if ate cheese everyday, it wouldn't pack any pinch, and it would be taken as granted.

I say this because I was watching close-captioned Kitchen Nightmares for the first last week, at a bar, and for that half hour, it was the best thing ever. Then I forgot about how enjoyable it was.

I'm a bit drunct

I spent the a year or so without tv and when I had one again I remembered how awesome tv is sometimes.

a friend of my girlfriend doesn't have a television, and whenever its on at her house, he can't stop staring at it, and will watch WHATEVER is on.

My ex sometimes gets cross when he comes over and I do put on even a DVD (let alone the TV) because he wants to talk to us all and the TV is distracting. I get this point - TV makes it too easy for people to sit together in a room and have no freaking interaction with each other. It has its uses, but like the internet, it really is socially damaging oh god I sound like an 80 year old, dear god.

Yeah but you're otm.

i need the tv on all the time even when im not watching it because fuck if im actually going to give my brain the silence to start thinking about stuff

^^^^^^^A+, full agreement from every member of my family; it frustrates me sometimes but still

At the risk of sounding self-righteous, TV bores me. I was raised on it, and I've seen 1000 episodes of Three's Company like most people my age, but nowadays if I try to sit and watch television -- even (and really especially) cable news -- for more than about an hour, I start to go nuts. It is profoundly understimulating. Nothing makes me want to read a book more than watching TV.

Frasier is good, though. ;)

I feel like TV is the informational equivalent of the Red Eye, the free newspaper that you get on the train in Chicago that has two pages of the top AP news stories, and 30 pages of things that did not need to be printed anywhere ever. You actually feel dumber when you're done reading it. TV is almost always like that for me. Even (and really especially) cable news.

This is also why I stink at bar trivia.

dont be so hard on yrself - an hour of cable news is a good run

not everybody who shuns tv is actually smug about it however if you let it slip that you don't watch hardly any tv ppl will always go "you smug bastard, thinkin you're better than us"

― J0hn D., Friday, November 21, 2008 2:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^ this. I don't think I'm better or smarter or any of that. I'm restless and I bore easily. That's all it really is. It's not like I learn or do great things when I'm not watching TV.

Its the ads I cant bear. They're loud, compressed, offensive, stupid, and wind me up something fierce.

We just have a video projector and watch DVDs. No TV. When it was election time we'd just watch the debates at a friend's place. Worked out fine.

i want a video projector!

Totally.

I would watch TV more often if "The Cosby Show" was on 24 hours.

Its the ads I cant bear. They're loud, compressed, offensive, stupid, and wind me up something fierce.

― Trayce, Saturday, November 22, 2008 8:52 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^^ The first time I seriously went without TV was after moving in with my uncle when I was 18...probably for about six months. Went back home and I could not believe how plastic and condescending it all sounded. I mean, I knew it was that bad, but until then it just washed over me like nothing.

Also, what Kenan's sayin.

I've taken a break from most of the crap I've been watching for the past week and feel much better, becaue frankly most TV isn't very good right now and I've been wasting my time with rubbish (dirty sexy money? this thing is going to get cancelled, why waste my time?)

Plus the title is ridiculous.

well yeah but it seemed like it was going to be good last year. the cast is great. the show is terrible.

If there is one thing that I can take or leave with equal enthusiasm, it's television.

When I was the quiet loner who lived next door, I rarely watched television. I went nearly a decade without cable, watching everything on rabbit ears. I just went to the bars more often.

But even though I consider myself not a TV person, I do enjoy being able to watch anything at any time with our expanded cable package and DVR. I was skeptical about letting my daughter watch too much TV, but she loves to dance in front of it and was counting along with one of the shows this morning. She gets plenty of book time as well.

I was raised in a household where the damn TV was ALWAYS on. My dad was the kind of guy where if I was sitting alone in the living room quietly reading a book, he would come in and look around with a confused look on his face, turn the TV on, and then leave the room. Partly based on that, I still resent the idiot box a little bit.

But not enough to salivate over AT&T offering me a way to watch my fantasy football stats change in real time while I watch a Chiefs game.

Happy people don't watch tv, apparently.

I dig lots of TV but don't leave it on as background noise or anything. I generally sit down to watch something specifically, and nowadays it's always on the DVR which makes TV 1000x better. No commercials, no worrying about what time stuff is on, no flipping channels aimlessly. I won't even watch stuff live anymore, I'll wait until it's half done so I can skip commercials.

he would come in and look around with a confused look on his face, turn the TV on, and then leave the room.

this is why your father an i get along so well

My TV-watching life:

Ages of earliest cognizance-age 16: every fucking sitcom ever, and Nightline or 20/20-type shows, and cartoons, and PBS, a good five hours a day during school and more in the summer. (We didn't have cable.

Ages 16-20: Just sometimes watched TV, but hogged the TV for MTV2 if I was at the house of a friend who had cable.

Age 20: Moved to Boise, MTV2 was free???!!! But it didn't show a lot of videos. A lot of time getting high and staying up at 2 a.m. when they did show videos.

LATER at age 20 I did mushrooms for the first time and an after effect was getting actively angry at a television every time I saw one, leading to me not watching TV for two years.

22-on: Usual stuff: Colbert, Frontline, House, whatevs, blah blah blah. I think John got me into watching TV again.

I had nothing to do here for the first week I moved here besides be sick and not have a job, and I got really addicted to Dr. Phil. 5 p.m.-6 p.m. was the one good hour of my day.

last nite I ate monkfish wrapped in prosciutto followed up with fatted duck breast -- if TV had meat like that we'd all fall off the wagon!

OH FUCKING MAN I WOULD EAT THIS SO HARD

I've watched obscene amounts of television in my time, but these days I find it difficult to do. I try to catch 60 Minutes, but usually end up forgetting to...I try to watch The Office, but usually end up catching it on hulu the next day.

I get free cable somehow, but nothing particularly seductive. If I had TCM I might never go outdoors.

when we had a kid I wondered about how much to expose him to, and decided not to worry about it. he didn't watch or see it that much before he was one which was probably good, but he's two and a half now and it's pbs all morning. his verbal skills and general mental acuity seem to be way beyond a lot of other kids his age so I don't think it's hurt and sesame and stuff definitely probably helped him learn to count and the alphabet. the other thing is that by letting him watch some of it, he can kind of take it or leave it now, he doesn't demand it and it can be on and he barely pays attention.

I'm very much pro-telly when it comes to my kids. I realize the (good) children programs can teach them things.

TV makes it too easy for people to sit together in a room and have no freaking interaction with each other.

RONG. This could apply to reading just as much, if not more. With television you do tend to chat between eachother or at the very least comment. With reading (or even knitting, which I do) one tends to talk much less. (Actually with knitting I do tend to talk if it's a simple project.)

I have a really kneejerk reaction when someone proudly proclaims s/he doesn't have television, doesn't watch it, as though it suddenly makes him/her more enlighted. Kneejerk in the sense my foot wants to hit'em between the legs. That's not to say I watch a lot of telesion programs. I usually stick to the Wire (and other tv shows) boxsets.

It's not like I learn or do great things when I'm not watching TV.

yeah, I'm no smug fuck, I just waste my time in other ways, possibly even less productive! At the times when I do watch TV I find myself doing absolutely nothing with my time other than waste it, so it's generally best to avoid. I'm only trying to avoid becoming a slug.