The secret to happiness, get rid of your television.

[bitslammer]

There's plenty of things that can be learned by watching tv. Discovery channel, National Geographic channel, Science channel, Smithsonian Channel (not sure if this one is still around), PBS, TLC, and others have plenty of programs that aren't mindless. And even if some are, so what? If watched in moderation and not for hours and hours on end, there's nothing wrong with being entertained. People need a little escapism, especially these days.

I think you missed my point. I agree entertainment is good, for me though I"m much more drawn to interactive things and not the passive entertainment of sitting in front of the TV.

 

[LowBat]

I avoid the TV news too for the most part as the "politically correct" biased reporting is sickening to watch. I do however like some TV in my life which isn't a bad thing. If there is anything I watch way way too much of is this damn addicting computer.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I refer to my computer as "The Black Hole" because it sucks you into a time vortex, where hours whiz by at irrational speeds. I watch TV to get out of The Black Hole.

I love TV. I love all kinds of shows, movies, news. TIVO was God's gift to mankind. I exercise the foot rest handle several times an hour, so it's even healthy!:twothumbs

 

[Geofocus]

I work in a television station. My job is to watch TV all day long. At home i never watch tv. Only my girlfriend does. I watch tv shows on internet or the black hole like some says. WATCHTVSITCOMS.COM the best linker to free best-quality streaming hosted on the net, very user friendly and very up to date. 24, The Unit, UFC, Cartoons Simpsons, Southpark, Family guy Music, etc. For the movies i like WATCH-MOVIES-LINK.NET

I am a television pro like some said before. This is what i have to say about TV:

50% show 50% publicity
Propaganda BIG TIME
Bad signal
Fake HD upconverted
World News barely true
Co$t way to much
Boring programming
Stupid host
Hypnotising audio frequency
ZAP ZAP ZAP


Sorry we have some fu%king technical problems, your damn commercial breaks will be back soon! Stay the *%?$ where you are and buy buy buy!

 

[StarHalo]

Fake HD upconverted

The TBS HD channel is hilarious, it's not even upconverted, they just broadcast non-HD shows incorrectly scaled so it stretches to fit the screen. You'd think the guy who went through all the trouble and effort to colorize black-and-white movies would at least air actual HD programming..

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Thank you so much for Watchtvsitcoms.com dude!

I found Penn and Teller shows that blow me away!

And it works like Youtube in that you can pause and save up some time to cut down on flaky stuttering!!!

 

[LEDobsession]

There is so much more to life than just sitting in front of the stupid tube. I wish my parents would have limited my tv time as a child. My dad grew up not far from the mountains and so he and his brothers were constantly doing productive and sometimes destructive things :devil: that produced so much more creativity. I try not to watch tv as much and working and going to school full time help this decision as well.

 

[flashy bazook]

This very good thread reminded me of a book I have somewhere in my library, "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry Mander. The writer had experience in the advertising business before becoming a non-profit advocate.

Amazingly this book was published in 1978! Way before the expanded cable TV offerings of today with the multi-channels and the streaming of varied types of entertainment (movies on demand, specialized shows, etc.).

The writer thought that the bad effects of TV were inevitable - so we can't really blame a few bad apples that, if gotten rid of, the bad effects could be eliminated. A provocative argument to be sure.

Personally I do maintain TV but not cable, as I agree with other posters who refuse to pay mega-bucks per year to get shows riddled with commercials to the same (if not worse) degree like network TV.

Ads could be tolerated but not as much as we are being bombarded with: it used to be you got 4 minutes of content and 1 minute of commercials; now it is down to almost 2 minutes of content for 1 minute of commercials. WHY?? Because the networks found out that by gradually increasing the ad content people would not abandon TV? Unacceptable.

What it they continue adding ads little by little and end up with 1 minute of content per 1 minute of ads? Unthinkable? Just you wait.

On the plus side, there is interesting stuff, and I think that over time you can get most of the interesting stuff that might appear on cable through the network channels (with heavy emphasis on public TV - PBS in the U.S., BBC in the U.K., etc.).

I think that network TV does have every now and then entertaining shows, and PBS has useful educational material.

I see some say they don't watch TV but then get TV-content via the Internet - to my mind at least this is semantics, if you watch TV content via internet you ARE watching TV! The medium just differs a bit (and you in fact can avoid commercials LESS via internet than you can with regular TV and while using a DVR (like Tivo). It's only temporary that you are being offered fewer minutes of ads via internet, this too will increase gradually over time.

Also to consider is whether substituting internet for watching TV is really making a fundamental change. In a way it is too early to judge, but it is possible that over time bland content from well known websites will come to dominate (even forgetting the part where people watch TV-content via the internet).

Also, there is the risk that people will gravitate to ever more narrow interests and pursuits - or to social networks of little or trivial value (twitter?).

Overall, I think TV can be tolerated if cable is not used and if one focuses on a few selected shows of good entertainment or educational value. But it should be limited and not too much expected out of it, other sources (books....) need to be accessed regularly as well.