Day 19: Getting rid of your TV (addiction)

Published on June 14th, 2009

Posted by Jacob in Early Retirement, Health, Makeover, Strategy

…and computer games.

While I can not prove this, I think not having a TV, or at least not watching it, is a big factor when it comes to choosing unconventional paths. Naturally, there’s this popular idea that TV feeds the masses with certain values, but I believe this is exaggerated. Most programming offers fairly reticent opinions and is quite free of content. The great beauty of TV is therefore not so much that it acts as a form of active propaganda steering people towards certain goals, but that it keeps people from having goals in the first place.

When TV was invented it was thought to be a great opportunity, a great teaching tool for quickly reaching the masses. However, ironically, it turned out that TV was much better employed to keep people from learning. This fits perfectly with the focus on specialization. During the day, professionals attend to their jobs. During the evenings, they vegetate in front of their TVs, thereby preventing them from learning anything, and this effectively keeps them in their jobs. Actually, the closer you get to middle class values and neighborhoods, the greater the preponderance of silent streets; all you see in the evening are empty streets with a faint blue hue emanating from behind the curtains of every house.

Retiring early is not just about saving enough money. It is also about learning things with the aim to save money as well as with the aim to find something with which to occupy yourself once you retire from employment.

Watching TV prevents this development, that is,

It prevents you from developing a dissatisfaction with your current life.
It prevents you from developing new ideas.
It prevents you from learning anything that can change your life.

In other words, it promotes the status quo; your status quo. In other words, if you want to stay where you are. Keep your TV, but if you want to change, maybe the first thing to do is to get rid of your TV.

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fandd said,

Good post. TV tricks you into thinking that you’re doing something when you’re actually just stagnating.

I can see how tossing the set would also be good prep for being out of sync with middle class life. I still have my TV, but I doubt it will make it with me to my next move.

Joey said,

Sometime in adolescence, I began to find commercials irritating (you wouldn’t let a salesperson into your home every 30 seconds to make you feel bad about yourself and your belongings, so why would you let hundreds in daily through commercials?) and the inflections of “news” anchors condescending (every report began sounding like an infomercial, except infomercials don’t pretend to be anything other than commercials). I didn’t take a TV to college, and I don’t have a TV in grad school. I don’t plan to buy one any time soon. When I visit my parents, I spend most of my time in the living room with headphones on, which may appear antisocial, but is simply because I vastly prefer the sound of my music to the sound of the television. C’est la vie.

George said,

“Actually, the closer you get to middle class values and neighborhoods, the greater the preponderance of silent streets; all you see in the evening are empty streets with a faint blue hue emanating from behind the curtains of every house.”

That’s been a recognized phenomenon since at least the time that Farenheit 451 was published in 1953. I haven’t read “Bright Phoenix”, which was the very first version of Farenheit 451 written in 1947, so don’t know if there is a reference to television in it.

It’s also well known clustering around the radio in the evening was already a familiar lifestyle by 1930, but I don’t know if it had yet been recognized as being mind-numbing.

Robert Bryan Boova said,

Right on.

One of the first things one should do when working towards self improvement.

Personally it was something about the commercials that steered me away. I started reading more and more books because it was a form of after work entertainment that didn’t stop every 8 minutes so that someone could try to sell me something.

Great blog. Keep up the good work.

DebtFreeDadof6 said,

Great Post!! I just linked you to my post today telling about getting rid of my TV… haha!

You are a mentor to my frugaliness and self improvement! I appreciate it!

Benjamin said,

Ha! Perhaps you have hit upon one of the more overlooked predictions of Orwell’s 1984 here; the TV as a means for keeping people in their places.

AlexK said,

The radio ads warning people that analog TV broadcasts were going to stop made it seem like TV is an important necessity for life.

With TV: I was saving only the 10% that went into 401k and making $0 on the side.

Without TV (past 2 years): Making $$$ on the side and saving lots. I’m much happier without TV.

Frugal in Europe said,

Great post. We got rid of our TV 6 years ago and we haven’t missed the thing since. Although I have noticed that the surfing internet (reading blogs etc) has replaced the time spent watching TV. I definitely could cut a few hours a week on that.

Pipps said,

I got rid of my TV five years ago and I have never looked back!

Sam said,

You’re right, but…

I’ve been without TV for quite a while. I did spurge on DSL internet and now I find that I spend as much time with it as some people do on TV. It doesn’t enhance my life enough to justify the wasted time. Just yesterday, I decided to budget my internet time and enjoy the summer weather.

Got to go. I’m already over budget for today…

Eden said,

I tried ditching cable TV and while I was certainly able to survive, I just couldn’t go without the sports for that long.

I’m a big sports fan, watching football is what I like to do for entertainment/relaxation. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I think I can still find success while making time for some television.

Chad said,

Hulu could be one way to get rid of your TV and still enjoy a program or two. Sure, you would still be wasting some time watching TV, but I guarantee you wouldn’t hunt for programs nearly as much as you do with a remote. I would imagine you could cut a good 60-80% of your TV watching just by ditching cable/TV and getting the few programs you trully like off of Hulu or that network’s website. I half do this now and I have a TV. I probably should go all the way.

PC said,

I don’t have cable. We watch less than 10 DVDs a year. I would be more interested in tactics of limiting high speed internet usage.

Retired Syd said,

Well, you’re preaching to the choir here. I think TV is the best way to ensure unhappiness in retirement.

ElizabethG said,

I got rid of the TV about 5 years ago. I was initially surprised that I didn’t miss it. What I do find a bit odd now, is that I am becoming increasingly unaware of certain cultural references like character names…

Robyn said,

I have not had a tv for many years, but do watch dvds once in awhile. When I’m at a place with tv on I am very aware of how it brings me down and depressed I feel, esp when other people seem so entranced by what’s on. It’s like a spell comes over them.
However I too, like a few others here, am pretty attached to my internet viewing. The difference for me is I’m more in control of my “information-seeking” needs and intentions. I do surf but for topics that will enhance my life, educate and inspire. Still – I think I do this too much.
Jacob (or others) – do you limit your internet time or have parameters for how you use the internet?

cattusbabe said,

I have not quite cut the cord. We seldom watch TV and I would quite frankly get rid of it but hubby is not quite ready to do that. We watch just enough currently to make it worth the expense but that is changing and we may reaching a tipping point where it is not worth keeping the set. TV seems to make you want stuff you don’t need and I find that I can get the information I am interested in via the net and books.

MoneyEnergy said,

ha ha…. “preaching to the choir” – probably. This is definitely where the contrarians hang out! I started hating TV sometime in my adolescence – seen too many antisocial relatives gawk-eyed at the sports game on the tube. Became totally depressing for me. Even now I don’t have one, I’ve thought about getting one though, for watching some films – YouTube tiny screens just aren’t always enough. We’ll see. Though I already sit around too much since I work from my desk/computer.

Debbie M said,

I didn’t have a TV in college, any watching TV at home afterwards was a shock–I’d forgotten just how horrible the commercials were. It was pretty easy to get used to them again.

Later I created a rule to not have a TV in the common room except for preplanned events. This prevented the problem of sitting in front of the TV during dinner and channel flipping all evening. Now I have a rule that I watch only pre-recorded TV. This prevents the mindless TV watching as well and also means I never see commercials (except at Superbowl parties).

I do now spend too much time in front of the computer. And even though a lot of that time is spent learning things, there comes a point when it’s time to actually apply some of what you know. I once made a New Year’s resolution to actually do stuff instead of just reading about it.

Kay O. Sweaver said,

The same as many here I got sick of TV in late adolesence and never looked back. The final nail in the coffin was seeing my first roommate totally zone out to video games every night. That scared me.

On the other hand I also echo the sentiment that the Internet can be equally insidious if left unchecked. I can claim to be using it in an intentional, active way, but really, a lot of those YOUTube vids and such really add nothing to my life.

I’m trying to figure out an Internet diet and would love to hear others’ experiences/ideas in that area.

retireex said,

When my 3 kids were in high school, I converted the living room into a social space for them and their friends. I added doors to reduce the noise, and a nice TV system for their video games, etc.. I noticed that they were spending a LOT of time staring mindlessly at the CATV delivered mind numbing ads, reality shows. etc. I really started worrying about their grades, their young intellects being shriveled and reprogrammed, etc. I thought about restricting access, more rules, which I would have to enforce, but then one day on impulse, I just disconnected the amplifier in the garage…poof no more cable, no more problems. They were a little puzzled that Dad, a pathological fixit man, just couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
Now, 6 years later, they’re on their own living in their own spaces, and they pretty much ignore TV…just find it pretty boring, as I do.

Adam Lucas said,

I only discovered this blog this evening, read a few posts and, amazingly, I’ve found at least one golden nugget of wisdom in every one.

QUOTE: “… the closer you get to middle class values and neighborhoods, the greater the preponderance of silent streets; all you see in the evening are empty streets with a faint blue hue emanating from behind the curtains of every house. UNQUOTE

Ha, ha … excellent stuff!

Those of us in the UK have to pay about £10 per month (US$14 I think) to the BBC for our TV licence. Another reason to get rid of the TV.

Nick B. said,

I find that I go back and fourth with the TV. My parents always have the TV on. Either they are watching the latest reality TV show or watching a flick. It’s easy to get sucked into when that’s all you know.

While in college I rarely watched any TV. Besides the occasional movie or youtube video, I was just too busy trying to flirt or impress girls.

Now that I have a solid job and an apartment alone, I find myself watching more TV again. It might be the fact it makes me feel like I am at home again with mom and dad.

lew said,

Living without TV effectively adds ten years to your life. Those trying to ditch it and own their time instead of squandering it on crap might benefit from reading “Four Arguments for the Abolition of Television”.

Gina said,

I unplugged the plug in drug 10 years ago when my then husband “left”. He was hooked on TV. The kids and I loved the quiet …they were game to keep it off because 7 years before that I spearheaded a program (with another Mom) and we had the entire school district turn off the TV for a week and they knew the benefits.
Grades K-12 with no TV for a week. Talk about a mixed bag…everything from TV news coverage to hate mail form parents. Having the kids keep a journal of their experience I can tell you they, for the most part, LOVED it! Parents on the other hand lost a babysitter and their own drug of choice and many were quite vocal about it!
I’m amazed how many people still watch TV. Where do they find the time? Really! Adding up those hours is scary.
Enjoying your site and hope to find some inspiration for the 55 plus group here.
Aloha~

Jessica said,

My husband and I have been without TV reception for…I think it’s about 10 years now. It started when we first got married. We were young and poor. We had no money for cable and we couldn’t get any reception. About a year later, we got cable for about a year and we realized that we liked our life better before. We ditched the cable and have been with out reception ever since.

People are shocked when we tell them we have no tv. It’s strange how we have gotten to a place where people think that going without tv is impossible. I agree with all that you say above. It robs you of your time. It’s a form of consumerism. You passively consume information and ideas that come at you without really processing them. Your not making choices, forming ideas, or having to think. When you rent a DVD from netfilx or go on the internet to watch something, your actively making decisions about what you want to see and having to think. You have to go and get it, it does not come packaged to you. I think that makes a big difference.

I found that I was unhappier with tv. As a friend of mine use to say, “The best way to get you to buy something is to make you unhappy with what you have.” It seemed like a good lot of tv is about making you unhappy with what you have.

I mostly read now. I actually prefer books over movies now. They are so much more in depth and satisfying.

Jessica said,

I am glad to see so many others who are TV free. I have never meet anyone else in person where we live who goes without the tube. It’s a little like taking the red pill and following the white rabbit.

Theevildrsin said,

Jacob, maybe you should add “get rid of your Internet / media addiction.” random Twitter checking and Internet surfing is probably more of a time waster than tv at this point for me, especially with wifi and portable devices. Like everything else it’s about self control. I’m trying different ways to limit consumption.

MDL said,

A few books on this subject are Four Arguments for the Elimination of TV by Jerry Mander, and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Mander was an ad exec before leaving the industry and writing this extended essay in the early ’70s. At times, he’s passionately polemic, but the core ideas resonate today, even with other media. Mander thinks that TV destroys our capacity to reason, colonizes experience, and its artificial light damaging.

There was a period when I didn’t own a TV and don’t recall missing it. I’m getting ready to ditch the cable and HDTV.

travelabbieo said,

I’m only 22 but we’ve never had cable in our house and we were rarely allowed to watch a movie as kids. If it was raining we could watch 1 movie and that was it – I’d like to think I’m better off for it. Probably why I read so much, nothing better to do if it rained all day and I’d already watched a movie :p I will admit that I definitely spend too much time on the internet these days… I should work on that…

Denise said,

We do still own a TV, but it is mostly my DH who is still addicted to it.

Personally, I think the trick is to use it only for occasional entertainment, and not let it be a drug. In this mode it can be a source of food for thought especially if one chooses shows which tend to be thought provoking. But those thoughts happen in the time AFTER it goes off when I mull over what I have just seen and think about it.

Internet usage is IMO best used on this same premise. Not one video or site viewed on and on one after another; but stopping and taking time to ponder and consider what one views and which information is really adding to my life rather than just becoming another addiction.

It takes control and mindfulness…something I admit I have sometimes lacked. But its benefits are found in using the tool wisely (in a fashion which really adds to your life).

And I suppose it really helps me that I no longer even like the standard fare shown on TV. I’ve mostly been watching the old Star Trek series (which contains some thought-provoking subject matter and has an idealism that seems to have become passe), and sometimes a station called LinkTV — which brings unconventional ideas into my living room and serves as a door into other cultures.

Lou said,

I’d be willing to ditch the TV, but the rest of my family wouldn’t have it. I am going to drop cable and go with over-the-air TV.

brighteyes said,

totally agree, i got rid of my t.v about 8 years ago.

I now put most of my free time and energy into other things ( various projects ) which ultimately boosts my income, although i could still be even smarter and ditch internet and computer games altogether, television was the biggest time waster so quality of life is most definitely improved without it.

i’m actually looking at retiring within the next 2 years, something that never would have happened had i still been glued to the tv set.

swami said,

The difference between TV and web surfing is the commercials. Commercials are termites in the structure of our mental well-being. Of course, we can spend too much time reading blogs and such, too, but the mental stimulation of the Internet is much, much greater than TV, even “educational” TV. As for video games – they can be immersive to the point of addiction, but mostly they’re so inane that I can easily avoid them. If there were ever photorealistic, accurate, free-exploration games in travel settings like Machu Picchu, I’d be in trouble.

Dana said,

I understand the pernicious effect of commercials, and I don’t often watch myself because most of what’s on doesn’t interest me, but the reason that low income and retired folks watch tv so much is because it’s free , (in the US) unlike non-library Internet or Netflix. How do ere folks justify replacing a free want with a fixed recurring cost or series thereof? Is this merely a way of drawing a cultural distinction between voluntarily low income and involuntarily low income folks?

Eric said,

When I was young I LOVED TV. And I still do! But I noticed the type of shows I preferred were sci fi, fantasy, or supernatural type shows. These weren’t popular back in the ’70s and ’80s when I grew up. For a while ther were none that I liked at all. So when my TV broke I didn’t replace it and so fell back on my other recreational vice: books. I went without for four years. Friends and family were extremely sympathetic but I turned down numerous free TV offers. Ironically my favorite types of shows enjoyed a Renaissance: X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc and were better than ever. But I did eventually catch up and bought another TV. But my tactic is different. I don’t have cable. I wait until a show I might like comes out and I rent the first season. If I like it I’ll wait three seasons then buy all the DVDs and any season that follows (or download them from iTunes). While there’s more of the type of TV I like now, only a little is still worthwhile and even that has to survive audiences that prefer reality shows. So in the end I save on cable bills, am not prey to silly advertising, and save time. After all, a one hour TV show is actually 40 minutes or so without commercials and no cable means no zoning out watching stupid stuff just because it’s on. In the end when the TV dies I intend to take up the same philosophy the Native Americans took toward camp fires: they made ’em small and sat really close. Likewise I’ll sit really close to the iPad or laptop.

Vicki said,

About 10 years ago when my daughter was 10, I pulled the plug on cable TV. Unfortunately we ended up spending more on entertaining ourselves by buying books, DVDs, etc., than if I’d just kept paying the $60/month for the cable. So I ended up having it re-installed. At the time I wasn’t ERE or anything. This is just my observation that it can be cheaper to have a TV than to go without it. I think this is true especially if you have kids. It’s easy for non-parents to make comments about using TV as a babysitter, but trust me, when you are exhausted, it can feel like a lifesaver. 🙂

Trash your TV and change your life! Or how industries profit from your addictions | Din Finansiella Frihet NU said,

[…] rid of your TV and change your life. This is a good post about it. As a person who does not have, and has never had a TV – I can only confirm it: To change […]

John said,

When I lived on my own I didn’t have a TV. However, I still spent a lot of time watching mainly movies and documentaries (and some TV shows, e.g. Breaking Bad) on my computer. Now I live with my partner, who wanted a TV as soon as we moved in together, so we got one…she has IBS and it’s best for her to just lay sometimes, and I guess the TV gives her something to keep her mind off it. I would love not to have it. Except for one channel here in Australia (ABC, and sometimes another channel, SBS), the programming is just rubbish.

Bob said,

But then people replace inane TV viewing with inane web surfing instead.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with watching a bit of TV when you’re too tired to do anything intense. It’s an easy way to relax, and if you work in a creative career, get ideas.

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