Be honest. How much of a negative impact does TV have on your life – your mood, your outlook, your diet, your sleeping habits, your behaviour? Do you honestly think that you’d be better off without it?

TV is a wonderful source of education and entertainment for me. I thoroughly enjoy watching favorite shows with my husband. We cuddle, laugh, and discuss plots.

I can’t tell you how many people think I read all of the time because of what I know. Nope. A lot of it is because of the TV; great documentaries and informative shows.

I have a DVR now, so I never miss doing a more productive activity because I want to see a show. I can just record the show and watch it whenever I want. DVR changes your life if you like TV.

I can easily go days without TV and be fine, but I really do live TV and I don’t see it as a negative. It’s my relax time, and relaxing helps my health in my opinion.

lots of questions, and they all seem to be slanted in an antiTV bias.

I watch TV most days, as escape from the rigors of everyday life. Just like fluther, it is a way to amuse myself. I don’t take it too seriously.

I still read books, play games, see family, so TV doesn’t subtract from my life.

We got rid of TV but still watch our favorite shows via Apple TV. I think it makes me picker about what I watch since I pay for it rather than just having noise in the background like I did when I was younger and into my 30’s.
We just purchased a motor coach and occasionally we get free cable in RV parks. It’s horrific! I could never go back to 30% commercials again! That’s what I find frustrating!

I watch tv maybe 2 or 3 times a week. I prefer to read a book. I was without a tv for about 8 months and loved it, but my partner is a football fanatic, so we had to have one.

I only watch things on Netflix or the occasional PBS series like “Call the Midwife.” Not an issue for me at all.

No more than a book would, which is to say it has zero impact in terms of in the negative.

I am a much better cook thanks to the Food Channel. Aside from that the only other shows I watch is Morning Joe and muscle car shows on cable. Essentially nothing I cannot otherwise view on the internet

I love stealing shit. I pay 30 dollars a month for a server that runs rutorrent and Plex. I even have it set up to automatically add stuff before it airs on the west coast.

My TV looks like this.

I can watch whatever I want when I want without commercials. And I have thousands of movies too.

I no longer watch TV, don’t even own one, but it is 5 anyhow, bygones…...

I don’t have cable. My tv is used for video games. As far as that’s concerned, I have a proper handle on it. I never play late at night if I have work or school the next day. I get my news from the net and the paper. I’m also a fan of cellecting box sets for my favorite shows and movies. And no comercials. Although speaking of which, you don’t escape from them, they’re all over the net too. YouTube is stating to be pretty bad with that, popping in adds twice in the first seconds, and another halfway throuh your video.

I like TV. I like books and music and radio,too. I like being with my friends and walking with my dogs.
I don’t feel more negatively affected by television than by anything else. Advertising is ubiquitous across all media. I am from the generation that grew up disdaining television, and that is still a fairly popular attitude. It’s like anything else: overused, or used inappropriately it can be a bad thing. Otherwise, it’s simply a thing.
Like so many other gadgets, devices, procedures, beliefs, etc, it’s pretty simple. Don’t like it? Don’t use it.

Haven’t had cable TV,or any TV for years now and miss it not,watch news and anything else from the net.

No negative impact on my life, as I have not had a TV channel for many years. I’ve tried to determine how many years and I’m guessing I kicked the habit by 2001 because I remember how annoying it was to hear people describing the crap on the original Fear Factor. “Then why do you watch it”? Could be as long as 20 years since I had TV as an option.

One day maybe I’ll backpedal through TV schedules and see if I can tell when I gave it up.

Why did I give it up at the time? It was a waste of money. I was paying $30 for cable and watching less than an hour hour a day. There was a $1 video store a short walk away, so I reasoned I could rent a movie and have 3 days to watch it.

I went back and looked, and seems like I gave up TV in 1999.

I was a part time follower of Buffy and X-Files, but never saw Dharma/Greg will/Grace. I liked Frazier, but I’ve never heard of Stark Raving Mad.

I don’t think I’d do without in a bad way because I realize that it’s just entertainment, not real. Like cars always exploding when they go over a cliff. Or catching fire in a roll-over.
Society in general could do without TV because so many people seem to see it as real life and something to model their lives after.

I watch a little, play a video game every now and then. The vast majority of my free time is spent outside so I don’t see much negative impact. It has a place when all of the real fun is over for the day.

I haven’t watched TV since 2001 after the 9/11 tragedy. I only watch DVD’S, youtube, netflix and go to the movies now and then.
I don’t watch the news or do the media at all, sans the occasional headline online.
I like documentaries about interesting things. Nature, science, history.

TV is a waste of brain power and the media is a slow fear drip. Everyone should unhook from media addiction IMO.

Literally the only thing I watch on TV is Jeopardy sometimes. Anything else I watch, I watch on Netflix or Amazon. The only ads I ever see are on Youtube, and I mute the long ones, so I don’t think they impact me at all. As for news, I stay completely away from the mainstream stuff, because it isn’t meant to be news at all anymore. It’s entertainment and they pick and choose what they show people. I get all of my news from online sources that I choose myself. I don’t think the things I watch contribute to depression at all. As a matter of fact, I feel the exact opposite, because I watch a lot of educational things, and I’m also a big fan of well-made documentaries.

I do, however, think that American TV (can’t speak for other places) in general is intentionally designed to keep people dumbed down.

I totally agree with your last statement @DrasticDreamer it is designed to keep people dumbed down.

If I’m alone I never turn it on. Hubby watches it and sometimes I leave the room because I hate the shows.

I do think it negatively affects people who watch it. Depending on the commercial, it can also be very bad for them.

I don’t trust news media because it’s ALL biased. Can’t believe much of it.

TV barely impacts my life at all. I’m completely uninterested in most of the inane shows that are on. I only use the TV for occasional sporting events, such as the few F1 races that are still free to air, the occasional Rugby test, or some cricket. I watch some TV shows, but usually ones that aren’t on free TV in Australia, so I access them online or wait for the Blu-Ray releases.

As such, I don’t think TV really impacts my lifestyle or my mood at all. The limited sports I watch are fun, but they don’t take up enough time to have any significant impact. The shows I watch through other mediums also take up very little of my time, so I approach them as I do any other artwork. That is, depending on the quality and the theme, they can open my mind to new ideas, or provide a new perspective with which to view the world. I regard that as a positive impact.

I don’t see how TV is any different than Netflicks, Apple TV, or Hulu. I wonder if the OP sees a difference? To me it’s like saying a CD is different than a cassette recording, or a DVD is different than a VHS.

I would think the purests have an aversion to a visual screen, TV like or computer, with actors on it. They want people reading and experiencing life in the great outdoors or something.

@JLeslie The difference for me is that TV is just there. Other sources require you to seek out the show you would like to watch. That means you end up watching a higher proportion of shows you want to watch, as opposed to those you don’t mind watching. Also Netflix is ad free, so that eliminates a lot of the irritating garbage from the start.

I agree with @JLeslie, here. Assuming that people who don’t use Netflix or Hulu or whatever-the-hell don’t choose what they watch is a bit arrogant. And as for the ads, I for one, and actually most of the people I know (yes, we talk about this on occasion) either do other things during the ads, or watch them specifically to see what the trends in marketing are. It’s interesting sometimes.
The fact that there is so much more choice of programming these days indicates to me that the demands for variety are being met, not that there is great “dumbing down” going on.

But, like I said, there seems to be a great holdover from the days of the catch all “TV bad/no TV good” attitude, and a certain smugness attached to the “Well, I don’t do it, but all those mindless others do, therefore I am superior.”

But hey, we can stratify in so many ways. If we relax with a beach read instead of a book that someone else tells us is valuable literature, I guess that’s just another way to bolster one’s own need for status-seeking.

I am not attributing my whole rant to @JLeslie, it is specifically only my first sentence. Sorry, @JLeslie if I gave another impression! :-)

I agree with @FireMadeFlesh Netflix or other sources of entertainment are chosen, selectively, to be viewed, vs. passive viewing of anything that is in your face at the moment.
Proactive viewing of informative, educational or entertaining fare of choice vs. mind numbing checkout and settling for anything that crosses the screen in the moment.

@Coloma But don’t you agree there is a difference between “watching t.v.” and choosing a program to watch on t.v. as @canidmajor suggests? Watching something on Netflix is not inherently better than watching something on PBS or another station that one has turned on for that program.

Case in point. About a year ago, I spent a weekend reading and watching TV. Saturday I was watching TV, Sunday I was reading. My acquaintances lauded the reading day (before I told them that I was rereading some fluffy, young adult science fiction series) and vilified the TV day (before I told them I was binge watching a bunch of shows with Dr Michio Kaku about astrophysics).
There are so many choices, to assume that others are being less intelligent about how they spend their time is silly.

By your reckoning, @FireMadeFlesh and @Coloma, is choosing to binge watch The Simpsons on Netflix a more valuable or better considered use of time than watching a series about the oceans or climate change not on Netflix?

@janbb Well yes, one can still be discriminating in their TV viewing but just allowing ones self to go prone while an endless wave of drivel flashes by is not the same as selectively choosing. I chose to not hook up my satellite dish because I , A. could not justify paying for something I would rarely utilize and B. I find other sources much more selective minus the commercial deluge. Out of all the gazillions of channels I would only be watching maybe 2–3, PBS, the Nat. Geo/Discovery channel and the History channel all of which are online for free or on youtube and Netflix.

@canidmajor Hell no. lol
. The Simpsons is an idiotic and mindless show with no redeeming brain value whatsoever, regardless of how it is accessed. I binge watch informative shows on occasion, like my recent Civil War bender but this is why I choose to not have TV hooked up because I don’t want to pay for 90% of the garbage out there.

I love The Simpsons!

My point, though, was why anyone assumes that others are blindly watching the drivel. Some do, of course, but that is more, I believe, about the type of person who would do that, and less about the delivery.
Netflix, Hulu, et al, are no better or worse than regular broadcast.
Sometimes I choose drivel, whether on television, on radio, in a book, in a conversation, but the point is that I choose it, for whatever reason.
I used to read Proust in French. I read Marmaduke in English. If I was always so high-brow my forehead muscles would get very tired.

@canidmajor Not disputing it is all about personal choice but there really is no disputing that prime time TV and the media is not exactly high gray matter nutrition. I don’t consider myself “highbrow” but I enjoy being stimulated in my viewing not just mindlessly checking out. TV, like anything else, can have addictive powers and so I think that conscious, selective viewing is in peoples best interests. Binge watching educational fare is still better than binge watching mindless sit coms IMO even of the underlying reasons are the same. Kinda like binge eating. Better to binge eat a bag of cherries vs. a bag of donuts. lol

I mostly choose what I watch on TV. Actually, I watch most shows on my DVR. I fast forward through most commercials.

@canidmajor Just because something is on Netflix and not free TV doesn’t make it better. But Netflix and the like have the advantage of having to select each show before you watch it. How many times, watching free TV, do people finish the show they’re watching, and leave the next one on purely from a lack of something better to do? How many times do people turn the TV on, and then barely even engage in the show they’re watching?

Well, @FireMadeFlesh, I don’t know, but I’m guessing you don’t either. My point (oh, let me say it again!) is that making assumptions about how other people do things is silly.

As for me, I often have the TV on when I’m not even in the room (or the house) because the ambient noise soothes the dogs, and keeps them from going berserk at little outside noises.
So I’m not mindlessly watching unchosen programming, but it is going on in my house.

just FYI, Law & Order reruns are really good for keeping dogs happy.

Having a DVR makes all the difference in the world. There are very few things I watch in real time when it’s broadcast because that pretty much forces commercials on you unless watching PBS, which I do rather frequently.

If it’s all pre-recorded it is both consciously chosen and you can fast forward through commercials.

I did go through about a 10 yr. period in my much younger years of no TV at all. But at this point in life I just see that as rather pointless since we now can have complete choice and control if we choose to.

I see absolutely no reason why binge watching a good dramatic series on Netflix is inherently any better than watching the same on a DVR in whatever time period you choose. It’s the exact same content for crying out loud.

And YouTube has so damn many commercials now which cannot be avoided of FF through that I find that really irritating.

TV doesn’t really have a negative impact on my life because I don’t allow it to. I actively choose what i watch and schedule my DVR accordingly. I avoid most of the horror show of local news and not much of network news other than Sunday AM discussion shows as well as CBS Sunday Morning which usually has uplifting and/or informative personal interest segments and science or medical breakthroughs.

I view TV as simply one (out of many) source of information and entertainment. Yes, a lot of it is mindless crap and I can avoid it because of the DVR.

About the only time I kind of veg out is on Saturday nights when the local PBS Station presents a solid evening of music. Concerts from a wide variety of genres and no commercials.