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I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
- rdlecler1 10y agoThis article makes the assumption that people are not watching TV as a mental decompressor. Depending on your job and hours you may very well not have the physical and mental energy left over to engage in extreme physical and mental activity.
- hiddencost 10y agoEgo depletion is a controversial model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...
- imjk 10y agoI'm pretty sure the article mentions this specifically.
- wesm 10y agoI was also a bit offended by the premise that TV (or video games) has any causal relationship with achievement. I think it's the other way around, some people are not ambitious and spend their idle time watching TV. But watching TV does not keep you from realizing your ambitions. Completely uncorrelated in my view. I'm a high-producing programmer, and TV and video games play an essential role for me (as does exercise) to restore mental energy.
- Cyph0n 10y agoActually, I'm a PhD student myself, and Netflix/Amazon/Twitch is how I decompress at the end of a long day of classes and/or research. I guess it depends on the person; some people find physical activity enjoyable, while others (like myself) see it as something that must be done in order to stay healthy.
- dougmwne 10y agoI have personally found that TV and social media checking are not particularly restorative activities after a stressful day. Light exercise or a nap on the other hand are like a magic elixir. Perhaps the ultimate YMMV.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- throwaway2016a 10y agoSome people decompress in weird ways. Ways I decompress... - Writing code unrelated to what I write at work - Reading business books - Exercise - Mindfulness - Doing math lessons on Khan Academy - Watching TV Arguably 3/5 of those are just as mentally taxing as what I do all day at work yet somehow I am able to recharge. I think for me it is more about changing direction than difficulty.
- stevefeinstein 10y agoI gave up TV, those things didn't happen, but my wife left me, and took the kids and the dog
- Cyph0n 10y agoI'm sorry to hear that.
- romanovcode 10y agoYou should try stand-up comedy
- mmaunder 10y agoCorrelation...
- gjkood 10y agoBut did she take the truck?
- grenoire 10y agoIt's a zero sum game, of course. For each person who achieves their goals after stopping watching TV, someone else has theirs crushed.
- throwaway2016a 10y agoIn college my grades went down significantly when I started dating my future wife Sophomore year. I was a 4.0 Freshman year and only a 3.75 Sophomore year. Definitely causation... Sorry, I know you're being tongue and cheek, it just made me think of the anecdote :) One could argue that if I didn't start dating her and get married I would be much more "successful" right now.
- thesmallestcat 10y agoProtip: When somebody brings up their wife leaving them and taking the kids, save the marital bliss talk for later.
- doctorpangloss 10y agoNarcissism, I would argue, is a far more dangerous thing than TV. The author's narcissism lets her celebrate all these unlikable cliches: being a fitness guru, being an "aspiring writer," being an academic overachiever, having a perfect husband and incoming baby or whatever. Then the style: preachy, written in the first person, chronologically. As though the only way to write about yourself is like an upbeat propaganda travel log. The beautiful thing about a show like Friends is that it takes broken people and makes them likeable. Girls does a great job at mocking a character like the author, and arguably does more to encourage people to do good for themselves than the author does.
- thesmallestcat 10y agoDepression has a nasty way of driving us to cut down other people with self-esteem.
- threatofrain 10y agoI think it's good to depart your self-esteem from immediate social stimuli. People will strut, so let them, and don't react with low latency.
- fred_is_fred 10y agoI agree with you here. This is written in the preachy way that people post to Facebook and then say "#blessed" at the end. The whole purpose of this is to say how their lives are better than yours.
- romanovcode 10y agoIsn't this the main purpose of FB anyway - to boast how much your life is better then everyone's else?
- j7ake 10y agoYes I agree. There are countless number of people who get their PhDs and also are good athletes... I don't see why her story is remarkable. There was nothing about what her thesis was about or what kind of book she was writing...It's not clear what her contribution to science or literature was actually. The article did not have much content beyond success related words such as PhD, writing and marathon. Someone might as well write an article about their 200k salary.
- neel8986 10y agoWe at least have an option of not buying TV. Internet addiction is far worse. The sad part is I can not even avoid my laptop as it is where I do all my work. The device on which we work is slowly the biggest source of our time sink
- gjkood 10y agoAnd now its all ad-free binge watching...sigh.
- Johnny555 10y agoJust edit your hosts file and route your most time consuming websites (i.e. hackernews) to localhost: 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com www.facebook.com www.youtube.com
- hollerith 10y agoOn OS X 10.8, routing to 127.0.0.1 did not block the site reliably (with Firefox), but 0.0.0.0 did and still does on OS X 10.11 (with Firefox and Chrome).
- afarrell 10y agoYou might consider using an app like Freedom, Cold Turkey, or SelfControl to block certain websites at different times. Some people consider such tools to be a crutch, but unless you'd advise a dieter to keep cookies on their living-room table, you should agree that those people are silly.
- blowski 10y agoI gave up _not_ watching TV and found myself more engaged with friends, family and colleagues. A world where nobody watched TV might be a more cultural and educated place, but in the world we actually live in, cutting yourself from it has negative consequences. Everything in moderation.
- ordinaryperson 10y agoThe headline implies she went from zero to hero after quitting TV, but she'd already submitted her PhD thesis and was already close to her marathon time goal. I don't think TV was the difference. Besides, the implication is TV is some morally bankrupt mind-killer, but there's plenty of intelligent programming out there, not everything is "The Bachelor."
- ourmandave 10y agoNext week's article: I gave up my obsession with marathon training, then spent more time with my family." Next next week's: I gave up obsessing over my family, then was able to clear my Netflix queue."
- infodroid 10y ago> I was feeling proud until I realized I had started to transfer my TV time to Twitter and Facebook. How was that better? As the author observes, even if you stop watching TV, it doesn't mean you'll automatically be more productive. It's a struggle.
- jlarocco 10y agoReminds me of the onion article: http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel-429 http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioni... I don't own a TV, but I doubt it makes me any more productive. There are plenty of other ways to waste time if you're not motivated.
- Upvoter33 10y agoI watch plenty of TV, but managed to get a Ph.D. in a hard field. Don't worry, TV viewers - you can have it all!