On Not Watching TV
I don’t own a television. I watch DVDs. If there’s a TV show I want to see, I wait for it to come out on DVD so that I can watch it commercial-free and avoid those annoying cliffhanger pauses from week to week.
I didn’t quit cold turkey. I eased into it. I’ve always been an avid reader, and over the the years I found myself less interested in flipping on the TV than curling up with a good book. Then I spent three months in Venice, Italy, with terrible TV reception and much better things to do out in the streets and museums. Then I moved back to the States and found an apartment that, while lovely, stretched my budget to the max and didn’t get clear network reception. Faced with a choice between paying for cable in order to watch any TV at all or paying for internet so I could access the web and email at home, I chose internet. Now, two years later, I find that I prefer my TV-free life.
For one thing, I have more “free time.” That is, I don’t come home, drop onto the couch, and flip on the TV to let my brain zone out for an hour or two, and I can’t use TV as a distraction when I hit writer’s block or am just feeling bored and restless. Instead, I have to choose between other options: read, write, browse the internet, take a walk, or watch a DVD. And in the latter case, I’m limited to whatever movies I’ve received from Netflix, because I don’t waste money and clutter up my house by owning DVDs. I’m on the 3-DVDs-at-a-time Netflix plan, and I average 3 or 4 discs a week, depending on how quickly I move them in and out.
Frankly, I like this method of watching shows much better. For one thing, I’m not exposed to commercials and celebrity crapola. For another, I have a much wider choice of programs. That’s not to say that everything I watch is intellectual, mind you. I love anime (although I avoid any shows that deal with mecha, sailor suits, or competitions between children) and I enjoy catching a few television shows each season — I’m currently waiting for the new seasons of CSI, House MD, Lost, and Dexter. I like to try interesting-sounding foreign films and watch social-issue documentaries. I enjoy historical costume dramas and am currently working my way through the BBC series Foyle’s War. I watch relatively few Hollywood movies; I’ve found that a plot in which problems are introduced, built up, and settled in just two hours doesn’t satisfy me anymore. I’ve come to prefer the extended, complicated plots I get with series dramas and anime; they allow for better character development, deeper backstory, and more interesting plot twists and turns. You know. Like I get in a book.
It takes effort to go TV-free. You have to learn how to seek out information about products and events on your own. You have to learn to carry on conversations that don’t involve what you saw on TV last night and to walk away from conversations about shows you hope to catch on DVD later. You have to learn to smile pleasantly but blankly as your friends gossip about celebrities and shows you no longer recognize or care about. And, most of all, you have to learn how to amuse yourself in all that time you used to waste in front of the tube.
Frankly, I think it’s great.
drupagliassotti @ March 29, 2008