“TV will never be a serious competitor for radio because people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it.” – Author Unknown, from New York Times, 1939
Life is meant to be lived, not watched. To get started living your own life rather than watching others live theirs, consider its impact on your life.
Ten Reasons to Watch Less Television
1. It is influencing your worldview. Anybody who has ever been a policeman, a lawyer, a psychiatrist, an ER doctor, or an FBI agent will attest to the truth that television does not accurately portray their life. In almost all aspects, television rarely depicts the world and life accurately. Too much television results in disillusionment about what to expect from the world around us. This can most commonly be seen in people’s expectations of love, romance, and sexuality.
2. It is influencing your spending habits. If you think you are immune (or too smart) to be influenced by the power of advertisements, you are wrong. Corporations do not spend trillions of dollars in advertising hoping to influence you. They spend trillions of dollars because they know they will influence you.
3. It is taking you away from the real people all around you. The characters on television are not real. They are thought up in an office building and given life on a piece of paper. In contrast, you are surrounded every day by real people living real lives. These real people are facing real problems. They need you. And you need them. Limit your kids’ screen time.
4. It is robbing you of precious mental energy. When your television is on, your concentration is held hostage. Your mental energy is drawn into the screen and your ability to control it is given up.
5. It is costing you money. Americans spend over $6 billion per year just paying for the electricity to power their television sets. Add in the cost of cable/satellite bills, dvd’s, movie subscriptions, peripherals … and we’re starting to talk about real money.
6. It impairs your capacity for rational thought. TV oversimplifies reality. It presents subjects in a matter of minutes and everything is nicely wrapped up at the end. This harms clear thinking by conditioning you to expect that most problems have a simple, clear solution that can be implemented in 60 minutes or less.
7. It is bad for your health. Numerous studies draw direct parallels between excessive television watching and obesity.
8. It results in less satisfaction with life. According to the Journal of Economic Psychology, TV viewers report lower life satisfaction, higher material aspirations, and more anxiety.
9. It results in less sex. Couples who keep a TV in the bedroom have sex half as often as those who don’t. And if you ask me, that should be reason enough.
10. Its opportunity cost is too great. The average American watched an average of 5.1 hours of television per day in 2009. That’s time you could have spent exercising, eating a meal together, entertaining, enjoying nature, meditating, enjoying a hobby, reading a book, or fulfilling a dream.
Morris Stonewall says
I remember as a young boy, me mom saying TV was evil.
We never watched it during dinner, and I couldn’t watch it til I
finished my homerwork.
Anyway in those days all the kids would play outside til dark.
When I did watch TV the programs were pretty OK.
Mission Impossible, All in the Family, Happy Days, The Berverly Hillbillies and Kolchak the night Stalker. etc, etc.
Now-a-days I don’t know whats on but most of it is very shallow
and junk, are the producers doing an internship or what.
There are a lot more refreshing ways to use your brain than sitting
in front of a TV, read a book or talk to a friend or learn a 2nd language or a new hobby.
Anyway don’t let the net works try to fool you or school you.
Once they dumb you down there’s no coming back.
Emaximize.com says
Thаnk you for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbor were just preparing to do some research aboսt
thiѕ. We got a grɑb a book frоm oᥙr area library but I think I learned more clear from this post.
I’m very glad to see such great info being shared freely out there.
Alhaji Pullo says
Crap. This is the 21st Century. And trust me, people only watch TV when they have nothing else lined up. Once you are up to something, you cannot have time for the TV. So, it is more or less like all other pass-times. And talking about Obesity, you really don’t me to keep exercising all day long without rest at ALL,do you?
Dan L says
I’ve never read a book and had an advertisement pop up. TV is the path of least resistance for your brain. It makes you dumb beyond all hope and if our society collectively watches it, we won’t notice the dumbing effect.
test says
Great post.
Joshua says
There was a time long, long ago when television was worth watching. But over the last 30 years or so the quality of network television began suffering to the point of no return, where it is completely unwatchable nowadays.
The early days of cable television took up the slack where network TV went sour. Sadly the once proud cable networks began to fester. The garbage “reality” TV format became a mainstay destroying every cable network.
The only “TV” I watch on a limited basis is YouTube on my computer monitor. There I’ll catch a good classic movie from yesteryear, watch some great science lectures ( Dawkins and Hawking are my favorites) or I’ll make time to watch a few video tutorials to improve my classical guitar playing.????
ryan says
this website is okay not good but ok. :)
Jyri says
I don’t have TV since last summer, from the first month of it. I don’t like TV. I paid for Smart-TV a lot of money just to use it, because I paid for it. Actually I never liked TV and I bought it just to have Netflix and YouTube on it. On time I noticed I can do the same on laptop – so why TV. Programs on TV are programming you and a lot of ads to buy more. Never worked for me. Never gonna visit mall.
I opted out of TV. I save on electricity bill, I save tons on Internet bill, as I don’t need internet anymore for Full HD streaming. I can watch YouTube on my laptop in decent SD quality with my 1 Mbps Internet which costs me 10 € only, mobile 3G, unlimited. My previous stable internet were 40 € and costed that for 100 Mbps. Speed I don’t need at all as I live alone. I share internet from my smartphone.
Since I don’t have this stupid black box for a year soon – I am out more, I do homeworks better. I eat less junk or fast food. I also opted out of Netflix, the amount of movies here is limited and almost all are B or C movies. Series are not full and after all I don’t want to watch someone else life, I want to live my own. I hate TV.
Let me say. I hate TV. When I come to my parents. They ask me often. But when I come, they don’t pay any attention. One is sitting on TV at kitchen watching program X and another sitting in living room watching program Y. They sit and watch, not even talking with themselves lot. So how they suppose to talk to me? I don’t feel comfortable to talk with people when there is 2 tv’s talking louder than me. And then they argue that I use my smartphone at them – when they actually are in the front of TV. I don’t understand that. If you are watching TV, I can listen music from my phone. And yes, TV is destroyer. Get rid of it, throw it from balcony. Have nothing to do with this stupid black box. AMEN.
life without whatsapp quotes says
Joshua has a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University and is
fluent in Kiswahili.
Rapunzel32 says
The thing is, TV turns children into vegative, lethargic slobs with no imagination or patience for anything. They grow up to be boring, mentally slow adults commonly referred to as losers, who have no hobbies. TV in the background hinders child development, performance in School and perception of reality. Instead of TV we read books, go for country walks, go swimming, do arts and crafts every weekend, socialise. The children play with their pets and have their friends round. In winter we play board games and card games as a family and we all eat dinner together every night but we don’t eat in bored, forced stony silence, we all look forward to it because we always have a laugh and talk about how our days have been and offer support and encouragement to each other. Anyone can have this kind of happiness if you just get rid of the TV and live life instead of watching other people living life.