Today was the final episode of Survivor. Elisabeth went to join the neighbors to watch while I stayed home with the kids. When she got back she was sharing how so much stuff on TV is such garbage. Hmm... I thought:
Up until moving into our current home a year and a half ago, we had never had a TV that was hooked up (we could watch rented movies). I confess that I was somewhat concerned that having the TV would be a problem for me as it is the type of thing I can be easily addicted to. As it turns out, I have watched very little TV. Over the past year I would estimate it has been less that 50 hours total, at least in my home. (I have perhaps watched a similar amount when traveling and staying in hotels.)
As I look back on the TV missed and Elisabeth's comments about how bad it, is all I can do is agree. It occurs to me that aside from 3 or 4 significant news stories, I have never regretted not watching TV. Sure, there are some negatives to my TV abstinence. I am certainly clueless in discussions about this advertisement, that show, and what-not around the water cooler or pop-culture-quiz-game. However, this inability to chit-chat on such topics pails in comparison to my gratitude at not getting sucked in to something I am confident I would simply regret.
In no way am I advocating that to watch X amount of TV is wrong or even bad. This is one of those things that each person has a different level of appropriateness. In my case TV watching should be low. For others, TV is presumably much more acceptable. That said, I would be interesting to know how often an avid TV watcher would declare they regretted watching TV and if the regret becomes desensitized the more avid the viewer?
I did a quick search on the Internet and found some links that had some rather staggering statistics on this topic:
11:49:05 PM
|
