18 ms·

Giving Up TV for a Month Changed My Brain

88 points by artsandsci 7y ago

lostmymind66 7y ago
I gave up cable 10 years ago and I haven't looked back. I now have more time in the day to actually get things done.
mikece 7y ago
Much has been written about TV being a passive stimulus for the brain with hypothesis being that the lack of active stimulus causes atrophy of the brain. Reading doesn't have the same effect because the brain has to actively process the written glyphs to language and abstract concept so there's more processing happening than when you're just watching something.
- mreome 7y ago
  I've always thought that the the difference may actually be the reverse, in the fact that reading provides less information (and requires less input processing). The reader has to fill in all the gaps using their imagination, which seems like a more active mental process then the more "automatic" input processing even if such input processing may be more mentally complex. Arguably, you're actively processing much more information watching TV. Your brain is interpreting both sounds (usually a complex mix of language, music, and other natural and natural sounds), as well as as stream of rapidly changing and complex visual information. In both cases the viewer/reader still has to interpret and process the more abstract "story" elements, but in the case of the reader they are also constructing mental images/sounds/scenes as part of that process, as opposed to just consuming them. So while the TV viewer may be processing more information, they are doing so passively and their brain is mainly focusing on that passive automatic process. The reader is "exercising" their mental capabilities more as they have to fill in more gaps using their imaginations.
  - philipodonnell 7y ago
    Does this at all depend on the type of show? I find when watching programming with a lot of ambiguity (mysteries, procedurals, etc) my brain is very active trying to anticipate or think back to connect dots to follow what's happening. Compare that to spectacle programming like sports/drama/reality shows where everything is happening onscreen. I wonder also about foreign shows where you are forced to read while the action is in progress. And then combine that: I can watch reality shows with my wife and feel no real change in energy, but then we watch something like "Dark" (subtitled and very mystery-box format) and I feel exhausted by the end of the episode.
    - mreome 7y ago
      That all makes sense. There are some kinds of TV/movies where viewing is more mentally engaging. Mysteries, deep sci-fi or documentaries, anything where you are imagining and/or trying to understand aspects outside of the audio-visual experience. I was mostly just saying that in broad strokes that the most passively consumed written story still requires some 'active' imagination, where-as viewing a lot of TV/movies does not seem to.
- MrFantastic 7y ago
  I think that depends on the viewer. e.g. One could watch tv news passively accepting everything as fact OR watch the news while trying to understand what the agenda of the news program is.
- mrlala 7y ago
  I don't know how true that is anymore though.. Many relatively new shows are freakin complex and a commitment. You don't turn on The Ozarks or Stranger Things and put it on the background as a passive stimulus. It's a commitment! Infact I am finding shows so much of a commitment I can't even get the brain power to start them. So, I'm sure what you said makes sense for some standard sitcoms and normal tv programming with commercials etc.. but I would guess the vast majority of newer content just doesn't fit that model anymore.
gringoDan 7y ago
I've often found that towards the end of the day, when my brain is tired, I don't have the energy to read (much less code or work). Yet I can stay up for another hour or two passively watching TV. I suspect a lot of us are the same and we'd be happier and healthier had we just gone to sleep.
- grecy 7y ago
  Like a recovering alcoholic who avoids going into places that serve alcohol, it's much, much easier just to get rid of all TVs from your house so the temptation just doesn't exist.
  - exhilaration 7y ago
    I think a lot of us now consume Netflix and other services on our smartphones and laptops.
    - fredsir 7y ago
      Block it, then.
rvz 7y ago
This is absolutely true. I thought I was crazy when I cancelled my TV license here in the UK a year ago. But after several months, I wasn't missing out on anything. I never felt more productive in getting things done.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Getting things done is overrated. You're just spending more of your pollution quota. Watching TV is remarkably low on CO2 emissions. (I'm only half tongue-in-cheek)
hx2a 7y ago
I agree with this, and believe the positive changes will continue the longer people go without tv. I've been without cable for 8 years and I'm so much happier. When I visit my parents they always watch tv after dinner, and while sitting with them I've noticed how terrible tv shows are. It's strange, but it's like once the spell was broken I could see it for what it is: contrived and unoriginal narratives designed to keep people's attention and get them to sit through commercials.
Goronmon 7y ago
During the first few days we were at a loss for what to do. It had been our routine to watch whatever is on TV after dinner, and suddenly we were both dumbstruck for ideas. So we went to sleep at 8:30 p.m. Two things about this confuse me. 1) Running out of "stuff" to do. Maybe it's because it's been literal years since I've watched scheduled programming and don't understand the habits involved anymore, but I can't understand this idea of not knowing what to do with free time. We watch what's likely way too much TV on some days, but all the things they "discovered" they could do with all this time are still things we do regularly, without cutting off the TV entirely. 2) How do people just "go to bed" early because they get bored? I'm actually jealous of that idea. If I just decided to "go to bed" early, it would most likely involve me staring at either the ceiling, my phone, or a book for a few hours.
- y4mi 7y ago
  It works surprisingly well. But only if you're actually bored. If you'd rather be doing something, then you'll keep thinking about that until you stands up again. It only happens to me if I'm in a depressed phase or sleep deprived without really noticing it. Not really enviable though, tbh. It does not feel good (at least for me)
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  > Running out of "stuff" to do. This happens to me after about 2-3 weeks of crunch time; I’ll have replaced my normal habits with working, and there’s a confusion when there’s suddenly no more work to do.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    This is what I hate about "crunch time". I keep a priority list of my personal goals/tasks so I have perspective when I'm thinking of pulling another 60h week. Reminding yourself that crunch time shouldn't be a regular recurrence is a good thing.
- ndiscussion 7y ago
  Repeat after me: I am an outlier, therefore my outcomes should also be outliers. It's a bit self-indulgent but I've found it increasingly true the more I relate to, erm, non-outliers.
kh_hk 7y ago
I find it strange that YouTube is only mentioned once in the whole article (about listening to an old radio programe). I am curious if YouTube was considered or not as a kind of TV during the experiment or not.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  > No TV. No Netflix. No live streaming anything. > we listened to CBS Radio Mystery Theater on YouTube, a radio program I would assume they didn't watch anything on YouTube
  - yayadarsh 7y ago
    No live streaming. I wonder if this is purposefully specific.
merpnderp 7y ago
One summer I gave up watching TV (or video of any sort) for the summer and read 36 books in 3 months. I don't have summers off, so this was just an arbitrary period. I don't know if it changed my brain, but I remember thinking much clearer and feeling much more engaged with life. But how long can you go before rewatching the Office or catching up on Game of Thrones? We're all only human.
- eikenberry 7y ago
  IMO that was reading, not lack of TV. Reading for me definitely changes my thinking, most obvious in that my inner dialog changes tone to match the author I'm currently reading. This is one of my favorite parts of reading and plays an big role in my choice favorite authors and books. On the other hand watching TV or not doesn't seem to have this or any other noticeable affect on my thinking other than a bit of content (or not).
british_india 7y ago
I gave up watching TV in 8th grade. Best decision I ever made. I now read around 200 books a year.
blueboo 7y ago
Soon we’ll start seeing similar results about podcasts. By and large they’re an epidemic of passive entertainment that make people dumber (with many notable exceptions just like Tv)
- djhworld 7y ago
  > epidemic of passive entertainment that make people dumber I'd be interested in hearing some evidence about this.
  - misterprime 7y ago
    I've been listening to podcasts for about 12+ years. I doubt their effect is much different than reading magazines. There are so many to choose from that certainly the selection makes a significant difference in the outcome. Certainly you can select dribble that simply enables you to parrot an opinion, but you can also select engaging shows that promote critical thinking and/or expand your knowledge of the world, business, and chosen skills.
VPZaQk8 7y ago
Dam I just watched season 3 of Jessica Jones in one sitting, guess I'm fucked
- misterprime 7y ago
  On a scale of Luke Cage Season 1 to Daredevil Season 1, how good was Jessica Jones Season 3?
Proven 7y ago
But it also distracted people on this site.
jccalhoun 7y ago
Can you imagine someone writing an article, "I gave up listening to music for a month and it changed my brain" and people having a positive reaction to it?
- gallamine 7y ago
  No, but if the title was instead "I gave up listening to [the top commercialized] music for a month and it changed my brain" I suspect it would receive a positive reaction.
  - sdinsn 7y ago
    I don't think it would.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Well that's food for thought isn't it? I don't really listen to music anyways, but one of those people who seems to need constant music in their life should try it and report the results.
  - gen3 7y ago
    I'm more or less one of those people. Working to music helps me because it keeps that hyperactive part of my brain that always wants to get detracted at bay. I will highlight that I normally just drop down into a playlist I have of all my music, or listen to an Artists discography. I have had instances where I'm doing something that requires 100% of my brain power to solve, and just the extra bit of music becomes overwhelming. That's a twice a year type of issue though.
- rchaud 7y ago
  A slightly rephrased title could be "I gave up listening to music while working", and I'd agree with the general conclusion. I find that listening to music can interrupt my flow state during a 45 min Pomodoro. When the song changes, or when the playlist ends, I notice, and get distracted trying to choose a new album to put on.
tictoc 7y ago
Wish I could give up youtube.
ashton314 7y ago
I didn't watch television for 2 years. (I watched a movie on rare occasion, but that was the exception.) I read a lot during that time. It felt fantastic. I don't think I've ever had so much thinking space. I still don't watch a lot of television. Occasionally a movie with my wife on the weekend. I'm pretty happy with it. :) Sure, there are other things I do that are probably a waste of time, but one step at a time.
mrlala 7y ago
One thing that has worked really well in our lives is to not have the TV in the main living space. Our kitchen/living room are all open and there is no TV there. To watch TV, we have a theater room. So it's an intentional act to go in and watch something, we don't just leave stuff on in the background. Obviously being able to segregate this isn't possible for a lot of people's living spaces.. but it is really nice making it an intentional act. It's like my kids and their computers- we have a room for that. They don't have tablets. If they are going to play electronics, ok go there sit down and do it. But once you are somewhere else like the living room that is for reading/talking etc, not for sitting on a tablet.
- misterprime 7y ago
  That sounds pretty healthy. Can you share how often the living room gets used for reading and talking? In most homes I see, these spaces go unused in favor of the TV room. I was raised in a "single tv" household and I think it helped that we all had to compromise on what we wanted to watch. This was before laptops were common, so screens are much more ubiquitous now. However, during the 90s it was common for each bedroom to have its own TV.
  - mrlala 7y ago
    Living room gets used every day. It's not tucked away, it's in the center of the house with the kitchen, so that I like as well. It really is interesting how the layout of a home can really determine how you function in your life day to day!
phil248 7y ago
The phrase "watching TV" has lost all meaning. If someone mindlessly flips channels all evening, watching hundreds of commercials and "whatever's on", I can see how that can be detrimental. For most of my life, that is what "watching TV" meant. I am amazed that anyone still does this. But if someone watches a handful of shows they have selected that suit their particular taste, and then watch those shows at the time of their choosing and without commercials, the downside seems minimal. They are still "watching TV", I suppose, but it seems like an altogether different activity.
TheJazi13 7y ago
Honestly, what's wrong with being well rounded in your entertainment? So frequently there are articles plasters about how you must "give up" things like television. I'm listening to an episode of How I Built This at work, will read some Game of Thrones on the way home, will watch Love Island with dinner and probably throw on a record as I get ready for bed. It's not an all or nothing game here, you can just enjoy life.
- basscomm 7y ago
  > Honestly, what's wrong with being well rounded in your entertainment? Absolutely nothing. However, people are weird, and everybody is wired differently. Sometimes cutting out the thing completely is the only way someone can control themselves. For instance, an alcoholic might not be able to moderate their drinking and abstinence may be the only way they can beat the addiction. Similarly, someone who is addicted to television might not physically be able to moderate their television viewing, and it takes going cold turkey for a while for their brain to adjust and new habits to form. I'd even go so far as to say that a large number of people addicted to television don't even realize that they're addicted to it. Over the last few decades it's become normalized and expected that Everyone (for varying definitions of 'everyone') has at least one television that's the center of their entertainment life, and every waking hour that they're home the television is turned on and tuned in to something. If it's not, then the person is weird because television is What You Do(tm) when you're home and not working.
miki123211 7y ago
Blind person here. I actually wonder if audiobooks don't have similar effects, on some people at least. For a while, I used to read a lot of books, mostly not requiring much thinking. Lit RPG was my favorite genre). I mostly used to read ebooks with speech synthesis at ungodly speeds which I'm used to, so I could finish medium-sized books in a single day of binge reading. I remember having book marathons, which were not that dissimilar from watching a whole season of one show on Netflix in a day. I didn't have to exert much effort, I just used the continuous reading function of my screen reader and let it speak. Not going to sleep until very late at night just to know how that damn book will end is also no news for me. The fact that there are no real breaks between parts, as in show episodes, makes it even worse. Sure, there are chapters, but switching between them in audiobooks is automatic, instantaneous, and they're sometimes short enough that I don't even pay that much attention to it. I sometimes watch TV shows with audio description, a special audio track overlaid on top of the normal one, with a narrator describing the visual aspects, and I don't enjoy them as much as books. That form of entertainment seems to require much more concentration and I'm often tempted to just stop. I think that for us blind people, the books vs shows thing may be completely reversed.
- larrik 7y ago
  Since TV isn't intended to be listened to exclusively, it may just be a matter of the format not translating properly. Have you tried radio plays? They aren't very popular in the US, but Britain seems to still make them. I'm curious if they are any better than your TV experience.
  - miki123211 7y ago
    I tried, but I'm not a fan, mostly because the BBC's website is shitty as hell, and I can't be bothered. No one else really makes them, as it's wildly unprofitable, but BBC is runing on tax money, so they don't particularly care. I sometimes listen to dramatized versions of audiobooks. In my country, they're sometimes made, released commercially, and not abridged.
- foxyv 7y ago
  I love LitRPGs. It's like candy in book form. Almost no substance and my brain just turns off.
fma 7y ago
I've given up TV for years. Having kids does that. The spare time I do have is in HN, Reddit, Google News etc... I'd like to reduce that, as most of the time it adds no value to life (except HN, sometimes)
sudhirkhanger 7y ago
TV shows, Movies, YouTube, etc. makes sense. Would you consider gaming to have the same effect?
- goda90 7y ago
  Gaming is such a wide range of things though. There is considerable difference in how I use my brain for a party board game, versus a first person shooter, versus a DnD session, versus factorio, versus a story game like The Last of Us. Am I being social? creative? analytical? reactive? or just observing, which is what all those other things tend to be.
  - sudhirkhanger 7y ago
    I think overall gaming has far better ROI than watching television. Of course if done in moderation and for entertainment purposes.
waylandsmithers 7y ago
I don't think there is any inherent virtue in not watching tv. People can do what they want in their leisure time and like anything else it can be enjoyed in moderation.
- 50656E6973 7y ago
  Is abstaining from conspicuous consumerism virtuous? If so, there is virtue to be gained by not exposing yourself to the incessant, persuasive, and obnoxious advertisements of television. When I quit TV I stopped wanting/caring about having the newest/nicest model car (among other things), and gained contentment and peace of mind as a result.
codesushi42 7y ago
It depends on what you watch. For abstract concepts such as math and programming, I can sometimes learn faster or gain more complete knowledge by watching videos on a subject. Sometimes visuals that are in motion make it much easier to understand concepts that are very difficult to explain in human language. I believe the written word is ill suited for expressing a lot of information that is less tangible. Videos are usually a good supplement to reading, at least for me. I also don't regret spending time to watch a documentary or the news if my brain needs a rest after a work day. And some new knowledge is imparted on me.
badrabbit 7y ago
After adulthood,I didn't get a tv until my late 20s. When I did get one,it really helped with "taking a break" from other things, with streaming I had to find content but with TV I just tune in without all that much care about the programming. Although, I still haven't gotten cable,it's mostly streaming IPTV(sling.tv and pals) YMMV

88 points by artsandsci 7y ago

I gave up cable 10 years ago and I haven't looked back. I now have more time in the day to actually get things done.

Much has been written about TV being a passive stimulus for the brain with hypothesis being that the lack of active stimulus causes atrophy of the brain. Reading doesn't have the same effect because the brain has to actively process the written glyphs to language and abstract concept so there's more processing happening than when you're just watching something.

mreome 7y ago
I've always thought that the the difference may actually be the reverse, in the fact that reading provides less information (and requires less input processing). The reader has to fill in all the gaps using their imagination, which seems like a more active mental process then the more "automatic" input processing even if such input processing may be more mentally complex. Arguably, you're actively processing much more information watching TV. Your brain is interpreting both sounds (usually a complex mix of language, music, and other natural and natural sounds), as well as as stream of rapidly changing and complex visual information. In both cases the viewer/reader still has to interpret and process the more abstract "story" elements, but in the case of the reader they are also constructing mental images/sounds/scenes as part of that process, as opposed to just consuming them. So while the TV viewer may be processing more information, they are doing so passively and their brain is mainly focusing on that passive automatic process. The reader is "exercising" their mental capabilities more as they have to fill in more gaps using their imaginations.
- philipodonnell 7y ago
  Does this at all depend on the type of show? I find when watching programming with a lot of ambiguity (mysteries, procedurals, etc) my brain is very active trying to anticipate or think back to connect dots to follow what's happening. Compare that to spectacle programming like sports/drama/reality shows where everything is happening onscreen. I wonder also about foreign shows where you are forced to read while the action is in progress. And then combine that: I can watch reality shows with my wife and feel no real change in energy, but then we watch something like "Dark" (subtitled and very mystery-box format) and I feel exhausted by the end of the episode.
  - mreome 7y ago
    That all makes sense. There are some kinds of TV/movies where viewing is more mentally engaging. Mysteries, deep sci-fi or documentaries, anything where you are imagining and/or trying to understand aspects outside of the audio-visual experience. I was mostly just saying that in broad strokes that the most passively consumed written story still requires some 'active' imagination, where-as viewing a lot of TV/movies does not seem to.
MrFantastic 7y ago
I think that depends on the viewer. e.g. One could watch tv news passively accepting everything as fact OR watch the news while trying to understand what the agenda of the news program is.
mrlala 7y ago
I don't know how true that is anymore though.. Many relatively new shows are freakin complex and a commitment. You don't turn on The Ozarks or Stranger Things and put it on the background as a passive stimulus. It's a commitment! Infact I am finding shows so much of a commitment I can't even get the brain power to start them. So, I'm sure what you said makes sense for some standard sitcoms and normal tv programming with commercials etc.. but I would guess the vast majority of newer content just doesn't fit that model anymore.

gringoDan 7y ago

I've often found that towards the end of the day, when my brain is tired, I don't have the energy to read (much less code or work). Yet I can stay up for another hour or two passively watching TV. I suspect a lot of us are the same and we'd be happier and healthier had we just gone to sleep.

grecy 7y ago
Like a recovering alcoholic who avoids going into places that serve alcohol, it's much, much easier just to get rid of all TVs from your house so the temptation just doesn't exist.
- exhilaration 7y ago
  I think a lot of us now consume Netflix and other services on our smartphones and laptops.
  - fredsir 7y ago
    Block it, then.

rvz 7y ago

This is absolutely true. I thought I was crazy when I cancelled my TV license here in the UK a year ago. But after several months, I wasn't missing out on anything. I never felt more productive in getting things done.

icebraining 7y ago
Getting things done is overrated. You're just spending more of your pollution quota. Watching TV is remarkably low on CO2 emissions. (I'm only half tongue-in-cheek)

hx2a 7y ago

I agree with this, and believe the positive changes will continue the longer people go without tv. I've been without cable for 8 years and I'm so much happier. When I visit my parents they always watch tv after dinner, and while sitting with them I've noticed how terrible tv shows are. It's strange, but it's like once the spell was broken I could see it for what it is: contrived and unoriginal narratives designed to keep people's attention and get them to sit through commercials.

Goronmon 7y ago

During the first few days we were at a loss for what to do. It had been our routine to watch whatever is on TV after dinner, and suddenly we were both dumbstruck for ideas. So we went to sleep at 8:30 p.m. Two things about this confuse me. 1) Running out of "stuff" to do. Maybe it's because it's been literal years since I've watched scheduled programming and don't understand the habits involved anymore, but I can't understand this idea of not knowing what to do with free time. We watch what's likely way too much TV on some days, but all the things they "discovered" they could do with all this time are still things we do regularly, without cutting off the TV entirely. 2) How do people just "go to bed" early because they get bored? I'm actually jealous of that idea. If I just decided to "go to bed" early, it would most likely involve me staring at either the ceiling, my phone, or a book for a few hours.

y4mi 7y ago
It works surprisingly well. But only if you're actually bored. If you'd rather be doing something, then you'll keep thinking about that until you stands up again. It only happens to me if I'm in a depressed phase or sleep deprived without really noticing it. Not really enviable though, tbh. It does not feel good (at least for me)
kd5bjo 7y ago
> Running out of "stuff" to do. This happens to me after about 2-3 weeks of crunch time; I’ll have replaced my normal habits with working, and there’s a confusion when there’s suddenly no more work to do.
- r00fus 7y ago
  This is what I hate about "crunch time". I keep a priority list of my personal goals/tasks so I have perspective when I'm thinking of pulling another 60h week. Reminding yourself that crunch time shouldn't be a regular recurrence is a good thing.
ndiscussion 7y ago
Repeat after me: I am an outlier, therefore my outcomes should also be outliers. It's a bit self-indulgent but I've found it increasingly true the more I relate to, erm, non-outliers.

kh_hk 7y ago

I find it strange that YouTube is only mentioned once in the whole article (about listening to an old radio programe). I am curious if YouTube was considered or not as a kind of TV during the experiment or not.

oarsinsync 7y ago
> No TV. No Netflix. No live streaming anything. > we listened to CBS Radio Mystery Theater on YouTube, a radio program I would assume they didn't watch anything on YouTube
- yayadarsh 7y ago
  No live streaming. I wonder if this is purposefully specific.

merpnderp 7y ago

One summer I gave up watching TV (or video of any sort) for the summer and read 36 books in 3 months. I don't have summers off, so this was just an arbitrary period. I don't know if it changed my brain, but I remember thinking much clearer and feeling much more engaged with life. But how long can you go before rewatching the Office or catching up on Game of Thrones? We're all only human.

eikenberry 7y ago
IMO that was reading, not lack of TV. Reading for me definitely changes my thinking, most obvious in that my inner dialog changes tone to match the author I'm currently reading. This is one of my favorite parts of reading and plays an big role in my choice favorite authors and books. On the other hand watching TV or not doesn't seem to have this or any other noticeable affect on my thinking other than a bit of content (or not).

british_india 7y ago

I gave up watching TV in 8th grade. Best decision I ever made. I now read around 200 books a year.

blueboo 7y ago

Soon we’ll start seeing similar results about podcasts. By and large they’re an epidemic of passive entertainment that make people dumber (with many notable exceptions just like Tv)

djhworld 7y ago
> epidemic of passive entertainment that make people dumber I'd be interested in hearing some evidence about this.
- misterprime 7y ago
  I've been listening to podcasts for about 12+ years. I doubt their effect is much different than reading magazines. There are so many to choose from that certainly the selection makes a significant difference in the outcome. Certainly you can select dribble that simply enables you to parrot an opinion, but you can also select engaging shows that promote critical thinking and/or expand your knowledge of the world, business, and chosen skills.

VPZaQk8 7y ago

Dam I just watched season 3 of Jessica Jones in one sitting, guess I'm fucked

misterprime 7y ago
On a scale of Luke Cage Season 1 to Daredevil Season 1, how good was Jessica Jones Season 3?

Proven 7y ago

But it also distracted people on this site.

jccalhoun 7y ago

Can you imagine someone writing an article, "I gave up listening to music for a month and it changed my brain" and people having a positive reaction to it?

gallamine 7y ago
No, but if the title was instead "I gave up listening to [the top commercialized] music for a month and it changed my brain" I suspect it would receive a positive reaction.
- sdinsn 7y ago
  I don't think it would.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Well that's food for thought isn't it? I don't really listen to music anyways, but one of those people who seems to need constant music in their life should try it and report the results.
- gen3 7y ago
  I'm more or less one of those people. Working to music helps me because it keeps that hyperactive part of my brain that always wants to get detracted at bay. I will highlight that I normally just drop down into a playlist I have of all my music, or listen to an Artists discography. I have had instances where I'm doing something that requires 100% of my brain power to solve, and just the extra bit of music becomes overwhelming. That's a twice a year type of issue though.
rchaud 7y ago
A slightly rephrased title could be "I gave up listening to music while working", and I'd agree with the general conclusion. I find that listening to music can interrupt my flow state during a 45 min Pomodoro. When the song changes, or when the playlist ends, I notice, and get distracted trying to choose a new album to put on.

tictoc 7y ago

Wish I could give up youtube.

ashton314 7y ago

I didn't watch television for 2 years. (I watched a movie on rare occasion, but that was the exception.) I read a lot during that time. It felt fantastic. I don't think I've ever had so much thinking space. I still don't watch a lot of television. Occasionally a movie with my wife on the weekend. I'm pretty happy with it. :) Sure, there are other things I do that are probably a waste of time, but one step at a time.

mrlala 7y ago

One thing that has worked really well in our lives is to not have the TV in the main living space. Our kitchen/living room are all open and there is no TV there. To watch TV, we have a theater room. So it's an intentional act to go in and watch something, we don't just leave stuff on in the background. Obviously being able to segregate this isn't possible for a lot of people's living spaces.. but it is really nice making it an intentional act. It's like my kids and their computers- we have a room for that. They don't have tablets. If they are going to play electronics, ok go there sit down and do it. But once you are somewhere else like the living room that is for reading/talking etc, not for sitting on a tablet.

misterprime 7y ago
That sounds pretty healthy. Can you share how often the living room gets used for reading and talking? In most homes I see, these spaces go unused in favor of the TV room. I was raised in a "single tv" household and I think it helped that we all had to compromise on what we wanted to watch. This was before laptops were common, so screens are much more ubiquitous now. However, during the 90s it was common for each bedroom to have its own TV.
- mrlala 7y ago
  Living room gets used every day. It's not tucked away, it's in the center of the house with the kitchen, so that I like as well. It really is interesting how the layout of a home can really determine how you function in your life day to day!

phil248 7y ago

The phrase "watching TV" has lost all meaning. If someone mindlessly flips channels all evening, watching hundreds of commercials and "whatever's on", I can see how that can be detrimental. For most of my life, that is what "watching TV" meant. I am amazed that anyone still does this. But if someone watches a handful of shows they have selected that suit their particular taste, and then watch those shows at the time of their choosing and without commercials, the downside seems minimal. They are still "watching TV", I suppose, but it seems like an altogether different activity.

TheJazi13 7y ago

Honestly, what's wrong with being well rounded in your entertainment? So frequently there are articles plasters about how you must "give up" things like television. I'm listening to an episode of How I Built This at work, will read some Game of Thrones on the way home, will watch Love Island with dinner and probably throw on a record as I get ready for bed. It's not an all or nothing game here, you can just enjoy life.

basscomm 7y ago
> Honestly, what's wrong with being well rounded in your entertainment? Absolutely nothing. However, people are weird, and everybody is wired differently. Sometimes cutting out the thing completely is the only way someone can control themselves. For instance, an alcoholic might not be able to moderate their drinking and abstinence may be the only way they can beat the addiction. Similarly, someone who is addicted to television might not physically be able to moderate their television viewing, and it takes going cold turkey for a while for their brain to adjust and new habits to form. I'd even go so far as to say that a large number of people addicted to television don't even realize that they're addicted to it. Over the last few decades it's become normalized and expected that Everyone (for varying definitions of 'everyone') has at least one television that's the center of their entertainment life, and every waking hour that they're home the television is turned on and tuned in to something. If it's not, then the person is weird because television is What You Do(tm) when you're home and not working.

miki123211 7y ago

Blind person here. I actually wonder if audiobooks don't have similar effects, on some people at least. For a while, I used to read a lot of books, mostly not requiring much thinking. Lit RPG was my favorite genre). I mostly used to read ebooks with speech synthesis at ungodly speeds which I'm used to, so I could finish medium-sized books in a single day of binge reading. I remember having book marathons, which were not that dissimilar from watching a whole season of one show on Netflix in a day. I didn't have to exert much effort, I just used the continuous reading function of my screen reader and let it speak. Not going to sleep until very late at night just to know how that damn book will end is also no news for me. The fact that there are no real breaks between parts, as in show episodes, makes it even worse. Sure, there are chapters, but switching between them in audiobooks is automatic, instantaneous, and they're sometimes short enough that I don't even pay that much attention to it. I sometimes watch TV shows with audio description, a special audio track overlaid on top of the normal one, with a narrator describing the visual aspects, and I don't enjoy them as much as books. That form of entertainment seems to require much more concentration and I'm often tempted to just stop. I think that for us blind people, the books vs shows thing may be completely reversed.

larrik 7y ago
Since TV isn't intended to be listened to exclusively, it may just be a matter of the format not translating properly. Have you tried radio plays? They aren't very popular in the US, but Britain seems to still make them. I'm curious if they are any better than your TV experience.
- miki123211 7y ago
  I tried, but I'm not a fan, mostly because the BBC's website is shitty as hell, and I can't be bothered. No one else really makes them, as it's wildly unprofitable, but BBC is runing on tax money, so they don't particularly care. I sometimes listen to dramatized versions of audiobooks. In my country, they're sometimes made, released commercially, and not abridged.
foxyv 7y ago
I love LitRPGs. It's like candy in book form. Almost no substance and my brain just turns off.

fma 7y ago

I've given up TV for years. Having kids does that. The spare time I do have is in HN, Reddit, Google News etc... I'd like to reduce that, as most of the time it adds no value to life (except HN, sometimes)

sudhirkhanger 7y ago

TV shows, Movies, YouTube, etc. makes sense. Would you consider gaming to have the same effect?

goda90 7y ago
Gaming is such a wide range of things though. There is considerable difference in how I use my brain for a party board game, versus a first person shooter, versus a DnD session, versus factorio, versus a story game like The Last of Us. Am I being social? creative? analytical? reactive? or just observing, which is what all those other things tend to be.
- sudhirkhanger 7y ago
  I think overall gaming has far better ROI than watching television. Of course if done in moderation and for entertainment purposes.

waylandsmithers 7y ago

I don't think there is any inherent virtue in not watching tv. People can do what they want in their leisure time and like anything else it can be enjoyed in moderation.

50656E6973 7y ago
Is abstaining from conspicuous consumerism virtuous? If so, there is virtue to be gained by not exposing yourself to the incessant, persuasive, and obnoxious advertisements of television. When I quit TV I stopped wanting/caring about having the newest/nicest model car (among other things), and gained contentment and peace of mind as a result.

codesushi42 7y ago

It depends on what you watch. For abstract concepts such as math and programming, I can sometimes learn faster or gain more complete knowledge by watching videos on a subject. Sometimes visuals that are in motion make it much easier to understand concepts that are very difficult to explain in human language. I believe the written word is ill suited for expressing a lot of information that is less tangible. Videos are usually a good supplement to reading, at least for me. I also don't regret spending time to watch a documentary or the news if my brain needs a rest after a work day. And some new knowledge is imparted on me.

badrabbit 7y ago

After adulthood,I didn't get a tv until my late 20s. When I did get one,it really helped with "taking a break" from other things, with streaming I had to find content but with TV I just tune in without all that much care about the programming. Although, I still haven't gotten cable,it's mostly streaming IPTV(sling.tv and pals) YMMV