TV : Finally decided to lock away the TV

Kush · 2013-07-22T11:27:10+00:00

So I have recently started studying part time again. I have also started going to the gym again as well. I am doing a research-based masters degree and it requires a lot of my time to just read around my area of study to get as close to "knowing it all" as I possibly can before I even put pen to paper. I go to the gym at least 4 days a week after work since December last year. So since all this has been happening I find that what little time I have is spent watching TV. The wife is complaining, my son is complaining and I think I love my TV too much. I spend between 3 to 5 hours in front of the telly every week night and about twice that time during the weekend (Hey don't judge) You can probably guess that this means I find less time to play guitar as well as a consequence. So.. I have decided to lock away the TV and see how it goes. I am hoping to have more time to talk and hang out with my family, play guitar and read (which I used to love to do before the DSTV bug got me). Moderation is not enough here because my wife is not much of a TV person so this is more an issue for me and I would like to get to a place where I can go for weeks without watching anything and only watch specific programs every once in a while. I would like to quit cold turkey basically and I am excited for all the time I will be getting back in the future. So I want to know, who on here does not own a TV at all, and has anyone else had to take similar measures and how did it go? Please share your experiences.

AlanRatcliffe

Kush

Alan Ratcliffe wrote =

Enough Said. ?

Kush

RJN wrote I dont have DSTV. I just have "backed-up" movies and series, which i find can still be a time waster. TV's are evil , its Procrastination's poster child.

Yes I wondered about those "hard drives" and "backed-up movies" that many have mentioned as an alternative to DSTV. I have a problem with any kind of piracy, more than it being illegal, I feel that if you appreciate and enjoy someone's creation, you ought to support it by purchasing it legally. Its just wrong. (Barring aside some unique circumstances, I still maintain that one ought not to obtain something without payment where the originator does not offer it as such and that one should, as far as possible ensure that what one is purchasing is an original product.) But hey, that's just me putting it out there.

AlanRatcliffe

Kush wrote Yes I wondered about those "hard drives" and "backed-up movies" that many have mentioned as an alternative to DSTV. I have a problem with any kind of piracy, more than it being illegal, I feel that if you appreciate and enjoy someone's creation, you ought to support it by purchasing it legally. Its just wrong.

Agreed, and I'm happy to say that I usually purchase anything I like enough to take the time to watch.

I think most people are at heart honest (as the music business is proving- regardless of their bitching and moaning) - if an alternative exists and it is reasonably priced, people will by and large do the right thing and pay (or enough to make it highly profitable). iTunes have proved this with music and Netflix with films and series (at least in the US).

We in SA are currently in the void between the demise of the video stores (no rental video stores in my area any more!) and the rise of an on-demand service and are caught in the grasp of a greedy and substandard pay TV monopoly. So yeah, piracy is still commonplace. Things will change. And soon - long before the DOC actually gets their digital TV vapourware in place.

Highway-Chile

Mixerboy wrote ........when someone finds something mildly amusing and they actually say the word "lol".

I live in fear of accidentally doing this!!! ?

Netflix is fully awesome. Since I'm usually up to date and current on all the latest movie releases, the one's I want to see......I like Netflix for the documentaries and foreign TV series. I really like some of the TV shows from Sweden, Denmark and Norway...French movies and some of the UK TV series. It's great to just watch a series beginning to end over several evenings rather than waiting for the next week's showing.

I commend you though, Kush........ for taking a stand like this. When I grew up in SA there was no TV and I got a shitload done by comparison. Hours and hours and hours of practice, day in and day out.... and 110% dedication to learning to read and write music, study theory etc.

If I was single again and did not have 7 and 12 year old daughters.....(got married had my children late in life) I would seriously want to go off the grid 100% and become invisible.

Stand hard man and git 'er done.

briang-telkomsa-net

Stephen King in his book about writing referred to the TV as "the glass tit"

Must say that this thread has had me ignoring the TV more and doing some reading, practicing. Those things you just don't have time for.

Mixerboy

briang wrote Stephen King in his book about writing referred to the TV as "the glass tit"

Must say that this thread has had me ignoring the TV more and doing some reading, practicing. Those things you just don't have time for.

It always amazes me when people say they "just don't have the time for it" and then spend 4 to 6 hrs a night watching tv...........the boobtube.

Kush

I reckon TV will be one of those things that will be revealed to cause serious brain damage after prolonged exposure. You know, like how people only started questioning how healthy tobacco was in the 1960s and only fully acknowledged that it caused lung cancer in the late 1970s and 1980s.

I am not into conspiracies or anything but, the fact that a lot of big businesses stand to lose so much if TV was "outed" for what it really is and education campaigns were started to urge people to limit the amount of time they spend in front of it. I just wonder sometimes, like, if TV really was causing us to become dumber through the extended periods of time spent in that numb state of escapist nothingness, would big business keep mum on it in order to secure their own interests? I think they would. I know a lot of people who feel the same about radiation from cellphone towers for example.

It is my generation especially (who were almost literally raised by the TV and still battle an addiction to it in adulthood) that will prove or disprove certain theories about the evils of TV. Like for instance, if a study one day shows that brain activity dwindled a lot faster in old age leading to shorter life expectancy in segments of our generation that watched excessive amounts of TV over their entire lifespans, then maybe people will start to take it all seriously. And even then, it would be another decade at least before it would be accepted as a universal truth.

Ray

I am also looking to get rid of my TV but getting some opposition. But regarding all the evils of the box, are there no good things about it? There are some documentaries that are really quite enlightening I reckon. And then on Sunday night, when you are low and down about Monday coming up, aint it just grand to watch some good comedy movie?

For people (like me) who were raised before the TV came along, what did you do with the time that you now spend watching TV? I think that TV certainly want good for my old man becasue he just sat and watched sport all day and night. Any sport. Never liked soccer until the TV came along and then started watching it. Still didnt like it but he watched it. I still dont understand all the falling and crying and so forth but anyway.

Kush

Ray wrote I am also looking to get rid of my TV but getting some opposition. But regarding all the evils of the box, are there no good things about it?

There certainly are a lot of good things about and on TV. The problem is that 90% of the stuff on there is not worth watching, and TV has a way of getting you hooked to a point where you end up watching anything and everything on there even when you are fully aware that you are not even enjoying it and could be doing something else. That's where I was anyway, and it scared me, I hate when anything gets too much power over me.

Tokai-SA

Kush wrote I reckon TV will be one of those things that will be revealed to cause serious brain damage after prolonged exposure.

I'm not sure what's going on with this thread, have you guys all lost your minds? ?

When or where did this myth about the evil of TV develop?

TV is phenomenal entertainment, it's the movies, the sport, music, comedies, laughter, science education, geography education, wild life education, etc, etc.
What's the difference between taking a guitar lesson on Youtube and watching the Discovery Channel on TV?

Ray

Yes, if you have the self control to limit your watching to what you regard as edifying then I suppose it's just a delivery medium for such edification. And if you are impervious to the onslaught of the subliminals that the television launches continuously, then good. I suspect that maybe you arent. But anyway, I am gatvol of watching doccies on sharks, and monkeys and lions now. I am sick and tired of going to the TV and being able to choose reruns of movies that have been shown already.

Just the other day, the news channels were reporting on a pretty big event that had just occurred. CNN, BBC Sky reported it from an angle. And then I watched a bit of Russia Today and guess what. A completely different angle but still with an American accent mind you. Now, you've got to decide who you think is giving the thing the honest complexion. And where do you get that opinion? Why, from the subliminals and what you have been conditioned to accept. So, way back when I first heard Frank Zappa's Overnite Sensation (70's sometime) I thought it was quite clever. But if you think of it, it is actually prophetic and a grave warning. And it goes unheeded.

As for the sport, I am an enthusiast. But I looked at a rugby game and a cricket match and I said to myself "what am I seeing that I havent seen before". So for the most part when I feel like watching a game, I wonder up to one of the schools on a Saturday and that is a heck of a lot of fun. I used to enjoy going to the fights but that is also just so dreary now.

But I think that everyone here who has lost their minds is worrying because they are watching rather than doing. And in many cases they are watching something that they wont care to remember. So what's the use of that? What will you remember about Saturday's rugby matches? Maybe that the Lions should really be able to nail the Kings a lot easier than they did because they squeaked it really ( I watched bits of the reruns). And that the Bulls couldnt beat a team who were so clearly oxygen depleted in the second half and still scored a try. So, what's new? What's educational?

[deleted]

I love watching Strictly come Dancing.

Mixerboy

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

A good read, published 28yrs ago no less: http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X

AlanRatcliffe

Mixerboy wrote A good read, published 28yrs ago no less: http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X

Good book that. But I still don't understand why ebooks are more expensive than their print equivalent.

IceCreamMan

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Mixerboy wrote A good read, published 28yrs ago no less: http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X
Good book that. But I still don't understand why ebooks are more expensive than their print equivalent.

I agree, this was not the model proposed....I would say in 50% of the books I buy the e book is more expensive...... and u obviously cannot get it second hand either...

interest case around this is that I study law and the one book which has 420 pages (softcover) using a shed load of paper, glue, time etc was 475 rand ...the equivalent e book was 473 rand ..... 200 rand I buy the e book , 2 rand cheaper give me the hard copy please...makes no sense .......

but we digress

vic

DaFiz wrote
DSTV sucks BIGTIME... nothing can ever be as bad... :-\

At least there is a vague opportunity to discover a new venue to gig at on facebook ?

+100 and it's getting worse by the day ?

Wizard

DaFiz wrote DSTV sucks BIGTIME... nothing can ever be as bad... :-\

AlanRatcliffe

DaFiz wrote DSTV sucks BIGTIME... nothing can ever be as bad... :-\

OK, not having had DSTV for over a decade, what I really don't understand is the advertising. Seems that whenever I do see DSTV somewhere (at a hotel or friend's house) they seem to be stuffing as many ads in as possible (even squeezing them into credits) - just as bad as the SABC and ETV. I thought the whole point of a pay TV service is that it is funded by users paying for it instead of the ads? I remember that was originally one of the selling points of DSTV. Now it seems they are trying to make money at both ends, which smacks of profiteering.

vic

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
DaFiz wrote DSTV sucks BIGTIME... nothing can ever be as bad... :-\
OK, not having had DSTV for over a decade, what I really don't understand is the advertising. Seems that whenever I do see DSTV somewhere (at a hotel or friend's house) they seem to be stuffing as many ads in as possible (even squeezing them into credits) - just as bad as the SABC and ETV. I thought the whole point of a pay TV service is that it is funded by users paying for it instead of the ads? I remember that was originally one of the selling points of DSTV. Now it seems they are trying to make money at both ends, which smacks of profiteering.

Fortunately there are no ads during a movie.
What gets to me a bit is certain topics on the history channel.....I love history but I don't consider stuff like ice road truckers, axe men,storage wars, etc, as history. They sell it as "history in the making"... It really sucks ! ?

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