Most people don’t believe me when I tell them that I don’t watch TV. Their jaws drop to the floor and their brains start oozing out of their ears when they find out that not only do I not watch TV, but I don’t even own one.
“But – but – but then.. what do you do?” is a common response once they have recovered from the initial shock of finding out that there is a person out there who doesn’t spend his time staring mindlessly at the colorful picture box.
Most people can’t wrap their heads around the fact that I don’t watch TV. It’s completely stunning to them and they never believe me at first. It’s like when I say that I don’t watch television it goes in one ear and out the other. They will bring up things they saw on the TV, a program, a commercial, or whatever, and they’ll try to have a conversation with me about it.
“Hey did you see that commercial with that guy who did that thing and that other thing happened and then they all took that medicine and felt better?”
“No, that must be from TV because I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t watch TV.”
“But you must have seen that one. Don’t you remember when the thing and the other thing..”
“No, I said I don’t watch TV. That means I don’t see commercials.”
Once this has happened a few times it suddenly hits them and they are like “Wow, you really don’t know what that is? You seriously don’t watch TV at all?”
The average TV junkie will then ask me why I don’t watch TV, and what else I could possibly do instead. It seems silly to me to ask what I do instead of watching TV. Umm, well, I do other things. Instead of tuning out reality and turning my brain off to stare at pretty pictures that somebody else has put on a screen I choose to do other stuff. I would rather do almost anything than watch TV. TV is not even a last resort for me since I don’t even own one.
The average person spends about 15 years of their life watching the tube. Thats more than 131,000 hours staring at a screen with your brain turned off, absorbing what some giant corporation wants you to see. Imagine if you spent even half of that time doing anything else. Imagine how good you could be at playing the guitar if you spent 131,000 hours practicing? How great of shape would you be in if you put 131,000 hours into exercising? How many books do you think you could read in 131,000 hours? Do you think TV has done anything for you except turn your brain into mush? I certainly don’t think so. Sure there are some semi-informative documentaries or programs on once in a while, but for the most part it’s all junk! It’s advertisements, filler, propaganda, and fear. Why would I want to spend even a little bit of time turning my brain into shit? I don’t. That’s why I don’t watch television.
If there is something that was on TV that I’d like to see, I google it and watch it on my own time while cutting out all the garbage adverts and filler. Most people turn on the TV to see what’s on. Then they constantly complain – “there’s nothing on TV tonight.” If there’s nothing on TV, then why sit there flipping through the channels until you find something that you don’t actually want to watch? Many people will eventually settle for some crap they don’t even want to see but will sit there watching it anyway. Why? That seems incredibly stupid to me.
When you sit down to watch TV it takes less than one minute before you enter a trance-like state similar to the state you go into when you are being hypnotized. If you think this is far out, exaggerated, or false information, think again. While watching TV your brainwaves go to what’s called ‘low-alpha’ waves. This is a frequency range between 8 and 12Hz. This brainwave frequency is associated with suggestibility (hypnosis and mind control) and deep meditative states. When in this state you absorb what the screen plays for you into your deep subconscious mind and it can influence you later on without you even knowing that it’s doing so!
When watching television, your thoughts are not your own. Everything you think about while watching has been planted into your brain by somebody else. You don’t have to think to watch TV, and if you do you’re thinking about some fake television program, not realistic situations. You begin to think like the tube, you begin to act like the tube. You dress like it and eat like it, you raise your children the way it does. The tube controls the minds of those who spend countless hours trading their own thoughts for someone else’s idea of how reality should be.
Do you really want the big corporations planting thoughts into your head for 131,000 hours of your life? If you do then all the power to you, but that kind of life is not for me. There are too many other things to do than sit around letting people like Rupert Murdoch program my thoughts.
Did you know that television stations are owned by a relatively few people, and they ultimately decide what you see on their stations and read in their newspapers?
In 2002 the biggest US media giant, AOL-Time Warner owned:
Cable and Satellite TV: HBO, America’s largest pay-TV cable network with secen US and six international divisions, Cinemax, Time Warner Sports, CNN (10 divisions worldwide), Time Warner Cable, Road Runner, Time Warner Communications (primarily a telephone service), New York City Cable Group, New York 1, devoted exclusively to news in the New York City area, Time Warner Home Theater, Time Warner Security (video monitoring), Court-TV (ownership shared with Liberty Media), Comedy Central (ownership shared with Viacom) and Kablevision (Hungary).
Television and Movie Companies: Warner Brothers, WB Studios, WB Television, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Telepictures Production, Witt-Thomas Productions, Castle Rock Entertainment, Warner Home Video, WB Domestic Pay-TV, WB Domestic TV Distribution, WB International TV Distibution, The Warner Channel (separate companies for Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Australia, and Germany), and WB International Theaters in 12 countries.
Publishing: Time-Life International Books, Time-Life Education, Time-Life Music, Time-Life AudioBooks, Book-of-the-month Club, Paperback Book Club, History Book Club, Money Book Club, HomeStyle Books, Crafter’s Choice, One Spirit, Little Brown, Bullfinch Press, Back Bay Books, Warner Books, Warner Vision, The Mysterious Press, Warner Aspect; Warner Treasures, Oxmoor House, Leisure Arts, Sunset Books and TW Kids.
Magazines: Time, Time Asia, Time Atlantic, Time Canada, Time Latin America, Time South Pacific, Time Money, Time For Kids, Fortune, Life, Sports Illustrated, SI Women/Sport , SI International, SI For Kids, Inside Stuff, Money, Your Company, Your Weekly, EW Metro, The Ticket, In Style, Southern Living, Progressive Farmer, Southern Accents, Cooking Light, Travel Leisure, Food & Wine, Departures, SkyGuide, Vertigo, Paradox, Milestone, Mad Magazine, Parenting, Baby Talk, Baby on the Way, This Old House, Sunset, Sunset Garden Guide, Health, Hippocrates, Costal Living, Weight Watchers, Real Simple, President (Japan), and Dancyu (Japan), plus 80 other magazines in Britain.
Record Labels: Atlantic Group, Atlantic Classics, Atlantic Jazz, Atlantic Nashville, Atlantic Theater, Big Beat, Background, Breaking, Curb, Igloo, Lava, Mesa/BlueMoon, Modern, Rhino Records, Elektra, EastWest, Asylum, Elektra/Sire, Warner Brothers Records, Warner Nashville, Warner Alliance, Warner Resound, Warner Sunset, Reprise, Reprise Nashville, American Recordings, Giant, Maverick, Revolution, Qwest, Warner Music International, WEA Telegram, East West ZTT, Coalition, CGD East West, China, Continental, DRO East West, Erato, Frazer, Finlandia, MCM, Nonesuch, and Teldec.
Internet: the web giant America Online (AOL)
AOL-Time Warner’s competitors are Disney, Viacom, Vivendi Universal and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Between that group of companies they basically control everything you see on TV and in the mainstream media. Do you really trust these corporations to have your best interest in mind or do you think that maybe they want to sell you something? Maybe they want to sell you a lot of things.
Some people say “Spending your time on the internet isn’t any different than watching TV, so what’s your problem Mitch?”
Actually, spending time on the internet is much different than watching TV.
First of all - you don’t go into a trance if you’re using the internet properly. When using the internet you do not switch to low alpha brainwave patterns. You are interacting with it and deciding what to do, what to read, and where to go. Not that alpha brainwaves are bad, they can be very useful for meditative practices and for other reasons, but I don’t think that the television corporations have your best interest in mind while hypnotizing you. They know the power of suggestibility in these trance states and you better believe they are going to take advantage of it.
Second – For now, the internet is still open for most of us to share almost anything we want without much censorship. On TV, everything is censored. Everything has been approved by someone who doesn’t want to lose their job right up the chain of command in these companies into the very top. On the television you’re given the illusion of having some sort of choice when you choose which station to tune into, but only a small handful of super-rich elite own everything that you see on TV. If they want you to see it, you see it, not the other way around. How do you think they got so rich? By telling you what to do, how to act, and what to buy through television suggestion and hypnosis, that’s how they got so rich.
Third - Using the internet makes you smarter, not dumber. How many ebooks have you read on TV? Have you even ever read a full screen of words on a television? Not likely. . that would be too much brain activity for TV!
Try giving up watching TV for 30 days. I dare you to find something else to do with all that extra time. Perhaps you could even start a blog or find time to do something productive. Maybe you could even squeeze in a few sit ups with all that extra time, eh? You chubby TV junkie you! 
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
TVs are now obsolete since my computer is a TV, a book, sound system, a phone… you get the picture.
We quit TV many years ago for all those same reasons, and are used to people who just can’t wrap their minds around it. Pretty much every day at work, my husband has to remind someone he doesn’t have a TV. Same goes for our lack of microwave, but that’s a whole other story. Funny how people think you can’t possibly be happy if you don’t live just like them.
Brilliant post, thank you!!
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I also don’t have a tv, decided to buy the kids a trampoline instead.
Pays for itself daily, and i don’t even hear about them being bored, because i’ll kick them outside
I let them watch movies and kids shows, in my time at my discretion, play games, paint with tuxpaint etc. We use wikipedia and google earth to look at a place or subject and then discuss it.
I also have to double up what you say about the reaction, even my kids find it strange that when you say you don’t have a tv, people cannot conceive of that.
Seems that it’s more normal to say my parents are divorced, and we got the big tv.
peace, and thank you for a great blog !
This goes for any technology, really, not just TV. Computers are the new TV, in a sense, and while one shouldn’t totally shun using computesr (they are quite useful for a variety of things), one must also learn to not become too attached to them either. This goes for anything, however.
I am in university, and it is just fabulous. We have TVs, but they are just mounted on the wall and in the common area. Nobody watches them ever. Only the odd time for the sports, but even then, rarely. Occasionally somebody puts on a movie. For the most part, the tvs go untouched. You have people to talk to, never eat a single meal alone, outside fields to play in, a large campus with lots of libraries and places to study, high speed internet, and if you must, TV. It is always very walkable and there are nice parks. I can come and go at anytime and feel perfectly safe. I haven’t even touched on the gyms and the sports. 2 million books to read in the library, and lots of people to hang out with. Sitting perfectly still for 1 hour to watch a show with all the commercials is tedious.
Not only time spent doing something better but money saved as well.
Thanks you for this great post, I have been watching TV for many years and, I have wasted uncountable hours in front of TV.
I like this post very much, & i hope that it’ll help me out of this useless habit.
Glad you found it useful!
TV is obsolete!
What an awesome post! I agree completely. I have had practically no interest in television for a few years now. However, because of my hubby, we do own SEVERAL televisions! Several BIG ones. I can never understand what the point is in having such big screens.
I rarely watch television and neither do my children. We are a homeschooling family with a very relaxed,natural learning style. My children have plenty of freedom and I have never had to lay down any rules about televison. But they rarely ever watch it because there is so much more to DO! We have board games, a huge library, a full arts and crafts center, a science and technology center, a writing corner, lots of toys and manipulative things, a garden, and nicely sized front and back yards with balls, nets, rackets, hoops, et al. We are also very active with sports, various social clubs (4H, book/chess/scrabble/robotics clubs), regular field trips, and volunteering. There’s no room for boredom! My nine year old son, however, is something of a gamer. He loooves video games and had begun spending more and more time in front of the tube playing them. So, recognizing his passion but not wanting to see him turn into a brainwashed automaton, I sent him to a technology camp with a gaming focus where he learned how to make his own games. Now we have the software at home and, instead of him just mindlessly playing vgames all day, he CREATES some really awesome games (which exercises more brain cells than you would imagine) and he even sells them to his friends and our neighbors for spending money!
Having a virtually TV free life has been great for both myself and the children. I love watching my kids be and become their own person and not some regurgitation of a Disney character. They are fit, fun, and mentally sharp. I also enjoy the loads of time we spend pursuing our passions and getting to know one another. The only monkeywrench (somewhat) in our machine is my hubby. He’s an awesome dad and husband (he coaches both kids’ soccer team and we’ve never been late on a bill), but spends entirely too much time in front of the TV, otherwise. I feel that he misses out on so much time with the kids and I at home because of Sports Center and various other sports programmes on TV. When we do spend time together as a family (or couple), he typically wants to do so in front a screen! But, in order to get him to give it up, I’m pretty sure I’d have to pry the telly out of his cold dead hands! LOL. Besides, he works hard and everyone’s got to have their vice (mine’s chocolate and secretly being a Twilight fan – tell no one)!
Anyway, thanks for the great post and for reading this super long comment/autobiography – if you could actually bear to do so.
Hi Earthymom! Thanks so much for this comment!
I’m thrilled that you enjoyed this post along with so many others. It’s great that you got your son creating games instead of just playing them, you’re certainly right when you say that it will help use more brain cells, it will also improve and put to use his creativity and will teach him the mentality of creating as opposed to just using.
It sounds like you and your family are doing great, even if your husband watches a lot of TV, it’s not that uncommon for at least one member of the household to enjoy their time soaking up the tube-rays. Keep up the great work with you and your kids and hopefully your husband will realize how much more fun you guys are having and he’ll start spending less time away from the tube!
Try filling up his schedule with plans that he will follow through with that interfere with his TV time.
Good luck!
hey guy thanks for posting this article about the things you get to really miss by watching tv on a daily basis. i be honest with you my friend since i was young, i was really what alot of people would call a nintendo nerd or a video game fan. i was always into those stuff and was really good at it. also i watched so much tv that i was tired of just been there all the time while life was going by me so fast. until i found out about the internet and got myself into that. after a few years been online and following the tail of entertainment i got one day by accident about a clip that was talking about how can tv turn you into a zombie. that was the time when i started to think about it and really never was so into it as before. ever since i got so much into not watching tv that it kind of hurted me like if it was some type of drug that i needed to take to feel good. believe me i never knew how i addicted i got in to it. well until now when you reminded me of how tv can suck the life out of you because there is no true tv and never was. well i wanna thank you again for this and one last thing. if you search on google about tv and alzhaimer’s, you will find alot of interesting articles about it. and to tell you the truth, i also even have side effects because of it. one of them is the lowering of IQ. believe me i feel dumber than what i was thanks to it. but not anymore. god bless.
Hey Leo, thanks for taking the time to leave that comment about how you realized that TV can damage your health and lower your IQ!
It’s true, I realized it a long time ago now. I used to play a lot of video games when I was younger too, I’d still play them if I had time for it! That new Black Ops game looks pretty good.
I’d probably enjoy that one, but I just don’t have much time for games anymore. I’m busy manifesting an amazing life and teaching others how to do the same!
See you again!
Stop reading newspapers and magazines,as well as pay attention to all their advertising and watch how much more your brain wakes up. It will really blow you away. Funny thing is I still know whats going on in the world, I just don’t seem to have all that FEAR I use to have along with it. Why???. P.S I’m really good at the guitar (ha ha).
Nice article. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment at which I stopped watching tv on a daily basis, but it seems that I could have done without one years ago. Like the first poster, my computer (and internet) more than pays for itself acting as a television, library, radio, telephone, book store, etc. I’d rather read (albeit on the computer) than watch tv.
So the Internet makes me smarter, eh? Great! Now I can use that next time my husband complains about my time spent on the ‘net.
The weird fact is, I was able to wean myself off TV because I got a DVR. It let me record shows that I had always watched, but let me do it any time I wanted. I ended up having more free time and not being tied to the TV, which then led me to slowly forget to watch old recorded episodes on the DVR. Now I hardly watch at all. Thank you DVR!
Diana\’s latest article..Learning Reiki Easily
I live way back in the woods (in a small but nice house I built). I have never really liked TV since I was about 18. I’m 57 now. Nothing but a bunch of mind numbing garbage on there. I do own a widescreen, but it’s only hooked up to a DVD player to watch a good movie or music DVD on. I tell my friends that there is no way I’m gonna pay the satelite companies the crazy prices they charge to get a bunch of crap in my house. I would much rather be outside doing something fun or working around my shop. Frank Zappa had a great song back around 1972 and it was called ” I’m the Slime ” It’s on his ” Overnite Sensation ” album.. You should Google this song and listen to it, it will tell you the truth about what watching TV will do to your mind. Well, gotta go, think I’ll go down to the river with my girlfriend; that’s always fun !
Rick
I stopped watching tv about 6 years ago. Since that time, my mind is much clearer and I’m able to figure things out much faster. I spend that time I would be watching tv by doing research into several subjects, one of which is acquiring and maintaining my personal freedom. TV makes your brain rot. There is a reason it is called PROGRAMMING.
One day I realized, it’s pathetic to watch other people live their lives on TV. Whether your watching somebody doing their job acting, reporting, or living their lives on a reality show, its pathetic to waste your life watching other people. And that did it for me.
I haven’t watched tv in about 5 years now since I believe that “tuning out and turning off” your brain isn’t a good idea. There are a few shows I watch online, but while I’m watching them I’m also talking to friends or reading the news. I’d rather spend my time reading a book, going outside, or playing video games when I’m bored. Yet I still get people (including my parents) telling me that I should really watch more tv, since it’s the proper thing to do. HA!
I think you do have some interesting points about TV! It can take up too much of your time, when, in ifact, you could be doing things and being around people! Forget all those reality shows, focus on real reality and not the make-believe kind! If everybody stopped watching reality TV, it wouldn’t be around! Reality TV has been around for quite sometime now and people are addicted to it! Same with sports! Why watch when you can go play the game!(Does going to a ball game at the stadium count?)
Well, have a great day & a TV-free life!
If you ask a tv watcher to list the things they eat for breakfast, they will give you a list of breakfast foods they see on tv.
If you tell a tv watcher that you enjoy a bowl of pinto beans for breakfast they will be grossed out.
If you tell a tv watcher that you don’t have tv they will get a scared look on their face.
I used to be pretty hooked on TV. It interfered with my life because even if I was really tired, or staying home from work (sick), I would put the TV on in the morning, keep watching “one more show” (however bad the show was), wasting 12 – 14 hours, staying up way too late, not resting or getting any housework done.
I noticed that the TV became a pain because of our remote. The battery cover kept falling off. Then the batteries would always be missing (kids would take them out to use somewhere else), or the batteries would be dead, or the remote wouldn’t be programmed for the right device (DVD, DVR, stereo, etc.) so that the TV wouldn’t turn on. Half the time some other console like the kids’ gaming stuff (XBox, Wii) would be plugged in and I would have to unplug it all from the wall and plug in the TV and wait for the stupid box to program. Then our remote stopped turning the TV “on” even if it was working. It would only change channels. It would never do the volume so that involved finding another remote which would have the same problems listed above (no batteries, etc). It became so annoying just to turn the stupid TV on, and adjust the volume, that I gave up.
About six months ago I realized it was much more relaxing to listen to music than to watch TV. I stopped TV entirely because it was so much more peaceful. I would hear news on the radio or read it on my computer, so I still felt connected to “the real world”, but there was no stress.
My boyfriend bought a cottage and installed satellite TV. I was there on the weekend and I flipped through channels for the novelty of it, thinking it might be a nice change of pace. I couldn’t believe how irritating it was. Hearing other people’s energy drove me crazy. People crying, arguing, saying mindless things…. it was so irritating that I couldn’t watch even five minutes of anything. I didn’t like having my thoughts and emotions directed by whatever is on TV. It was so annoying to have my mood “directed” by what was on the screen.
I still pay for TV service to my home because of my two teenagers. My youngest doesn’t watch TV either so she said I should get rid of it. I am keeping it for my oldest but he is leaving for college in 6 weeks anyway. He seldom watches it. I think that saving $70 a month would be a very satisfying decision. I’m calling to cancel television service today.
I think I love you. You have said all that I am always saying to whoever will listen. Nobody ever listens though. People are condition not only to love TV, but to defend it against any slander. It’s pretty scary out there in the world today. Fucking zombies. They all act the same, look the same, think the same. It’s exactly as the media conglomerates want it.
Mitch,
You say you used to play video games? Did you ever have a PS3 or an XBox360 or a Nintendo Wii? Like you said you’re busy with other stuff, so maybe(if need be)you’ll get back on it soon(when you find the time)