Time to Turn Off Your TV?
“But what will I do without my favorite show?” is usually the question that follows. We’ll, maybe you don’t need to give it up entirely but the benefits of even limiting TV viewing if not stopping it all together are amazing.
First of all, most of the time, your watching advertisements. Advertisements are designed to essentially brainwash you into thinking a certain way and buying a certain product. All ads are designed to do this. Every day we are bombarded with advertisements, some you don’t even notice.
This is very draining on the mind whether you know it or not. Ever gone camping in the wilderness and felt more at ease. Part of that is the advertisements and constant stimulation are gone.
People complain all the time about not liking their jobs or not liking the way things are in their life and they use the excuse “I don’t have time” to avoid doing anything about it.
I don’t have time to learn how to invest, I don’t have time to work out at the gym or prepare healthy meals, Etc.
Think again. Do you watch TV? How many hours do you spend watching TV each week? Try tracking yourself for the next week and writing down the times you watch it and don’t cheat! The average american watches somewhere between 25 – 35 hours per week. That’s another part-time job! except instead of getting paid, your forking out your own hard earned dollars.
So what do you think happens when you free that time. For one, you will save money on cable. But the real benefit is the freedom of an extra 25 hours per week. You could easily read a full book in that time or study something else that your interested in.
With 100 hours per month, you could easily learn the skills to successfully invest and it’s more than enough time to get into better shape! 3-4 hours a week in the gym is all you need if your eating healthy. In just 12 weeks, you could literally transform your body and your mind. Develop new habits and kill old ones. Develop a new you. Develop a new lifestyle.
What are you waiting for?
TIPS:
- If you find it really hard to give up a certain program, why not rent or buy it on DVD or watch it online. I used to do this with certain shows like Arrested Development. I loved comedies but I hated having to watch them at certain times and I don’t ever buy cable anymore. I used to purchase shows on DVD, so I could watch them anytime I want, commercial free (saving another 10 minutes or more per show) but now I just watch them on websites like SideReel where you can watch most shows for free. Another option is Netflix. For just $8/month you can watch unlimited movies and TV shows streamed right to your computer or TV. The selection isn’t that great currently but it’s not to bad. You can get a free one month trial here.
Think of something you’ve been interested in for awhile that you haven’t had the time to do. Something you want to learn. If your a big TV watcher, turn it off for a week and give this new interest a try. Comment below on what that something is and then let me know how it goes 🙂
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Giving up TV is a hard one for sure, especially when you have kids. We’ve unfortunately found that we got lax with our kids and realized that we’ve been using the TV as a baby-sitter when we should have been encouraging our kids to get outside more. It’s so easy to get addicted to the TV. I think the attractive nature of TV is that you don’t have to think when you are watching it. I guess this is why my Dad always called it the “Boob Tube”. I have a few shows that I enjoy watching but afterwards I feel like I lost that time and have to do something constructive to make up for it. Sometimes I find that the TV is just on as background noise and no one is really even watching it.
We are about to completely cancel our cable TV for a number of reasons. First is we want to save the money for our sabbatical. Secondly we are just tired of our kids constantly being exposed to all the advertising. I became aware of this when one day I was taking out the trash and my son told me I should be using Glad bags because they were stronger. We have a Netflix account and can stream movies and TV shows whenever we want via our Wii and a wireless connection. It’s not completely eliminating watching TV but at least we don’t have to be subjected to all the advertising and it’s much cheaper than cable TV.
One thing I have started doing when I find myself watching TV is to multitask and do something else at the same time. That way I don’t feel the time is wasted. I’ll admit that it’s tough to give it all up but we’re really trying to significantly reduce the time we spend watching.
haha I had to laugh about the glad bags. That’s really funny. Kids are great for that. I think TV is mostly background noise for the most part but I know many people who literally HAVE to be home at certain times to watch a program. I find it a little sad. There are some shows I like but I would never give up “real life” to make sure I’m home to watch someone else’s haha. NetFlix is great although in Canada, it’s not superb yet. TV can be used for some educational purposes I suppose like documentaries or discovery or national geographic. One thing I really dislike is the news. It’s always 90% bad news and most of it isn’t entirely true anyways. It gives a bias opinion and leaves you depressed. Thanks for the comment Matt