Posted on January 18, 2007 4:24 PM by chadley
I like to tell people that I don't watch much TV. To be honest with you, I have my good days and I have my bad. I really prefer to watch movies over TV shows, but TV shows require less coordination with my familial obligations. TV is tricky. It sneaks up on me. Some evenings I realize that I started watching TV at around 7PM and 4 hours later, I'm finally turning out the light. That seems excessive to me. That's half of a normal working day, with nothing to show for it. I probably couldn't even remember what I watched the next day, without giving it a lot of thought.It seems that all my friends are getting those big widescreen televisions that cost a few thousand dollars. Those things are nice. You sit in front of them and the picture is just spectacular. And if you get something like that, you've got to get yourself an expensive digital cable package with all the high-def channels. This year Monday Night Football was on ESPN, which meant for me that if I wanted to watch football on Monday night that I had to go to my friend's house or something because I have the $9 cable package from Comcast. That gets me around 15 channels to watch. Every so often, I think about those nice TV's and all those channels, and you've got to get yourself a DVR so that you don't miss anything. All that just so I can watch more TV?
I worry about my daughter. She's so sweet. She knows the sound of the TV turning on. That little woomp! sound that the TV makes when you first turn it on gets her little head to swivel around. I don't want to be one of those parents that uses the TV to "babysit" their kids. In the evenings when I get home from work, I try to make a point of turning on the radio and listening to music while I get down on the floor and we play with her toys and crawl around. If the TV is on it is distracting and I pay less attention to her, and I don't want to do that. She's changing every day and I'd hate to think I squandered a minute of quality time with her, just so I could catch some stupid show.
If you're thinking about all the time that you spend watching TV, ask yourself what you're getting for your investment. I know that it is hard to quantify the value of entertainment. However, many of the shows on TV these days are so bad that it's really pathetic. I'm talking about shows like "Las Vegas", "Desperate Housewives", and "The O.C." The storylines are usually formulaic and/or implausible. Don't get me started on the plethora of "reality" shows that are out there.
People say that they like to watch TV to unwind. I definitely believe it is true that TV can put your brain into neutral. When I was a student at Penn State and I had an assignment to do that required creative energy, I found that it was just about impossible to be productive with the TV on. Not only that, I found that to be truly creative it helped to turn the TV off and just read or something with music on for a bit before I started my creative session.
I'm not encouraging you to go and sell your TV on craig's list. But if you read this and decide to join the revolution, and you're looking to offload your widescreen plasma, I could take it off your hands. :) I'm just trying to give you a friendly warning to be wary of this particular opiate of the masses. Don't let yourself get into the rut of work, eat, watch TV, sleep, work, ...
My advice is to make a list when you get up in the morning. (I'm usually most ambitious in the morning.) The list should have all the things you would like to get done today. Then take the list and try to rank all the items in the order of importance. I will bet that if "watch TV" is still on the list, it doesn't rank very high. If it does, maybe you should look into getting yourself a Second Life account or something.
This post has been looked at 1735 time(s).
Tags: productivity, television