Even if you can find something you want to watch, television is generally a waste of time. Approximately 20 minutes out of every hour is commercials, so when you watch 3 hours of television, you actually are watching 2 hours of your show and 1 hour of commercials. Here are a few ideas to make watching television more productive. (It sounds funny reading that.)
- Don’t Channel Surf
If there is a show you want to watch, then watch that show. Jumping from channel to channel can eat up huge amounts of time without actually watching anything. Think in terms of having a complete experience: a start, a middle, and an end. If you simply jump from channel to channel you aren’t really having any type of experience–you are just killing time and should probably do something else. - Watch Movies Instead of Television
Movies usually have had much more thought put into them. So in general, the quality of your entertainment is higher watching movies than watching television. Watching movies also frees you from getting addicted to watching a particular series each week. - Netflix and Blockbuster
The ability to have DVDs delivered to your home is a great way to take advantage of movies. You’ll usually pay much less than you would for cable and be in complete control of when and what you watch. In fact, you could probably subscribe to Netflix and Blockbuster for less than what a decent cable package would cost. - DVD of Television Shows
If you want to watch a television show, consider getting a DVD set after the series is complete. The downside is that you can’t discuss the latest episode of Lost or Heroes with your friends at work. The upside is that you can control when you watch it and there are no commercials. - Tivo
A Tivo is another way to handle skipping the commercials and give yourself control of when you watch television. However, it is easy to watch a bunch of stuff that you wouldn’t normally just because the Tivo recorded it. - Excercise
Get a benefit out of your television or movie watching by exercising. This works particularly well if you have some type of cliff hanger weekly television show on DVD and you make a contract with yourself to only watch an episode while exercising. The suspense will keep you coming back every day. - Libraries
Many libraries have a great collection of DVDs that you can check out for free or for a very low price. This can be a great alternative to Netflix. - Buying Used on Amazon
Buying a used DVD or set of television DVDs on Amazon can be a great way to get a good deal. Even better, if you turn around and sell them once you’ve watched them, you can end up paying $3.99 for the shipping to get the DVD set to you and recover the cost of the original purchase when you turn around and sell them to someone else. If you do this, just be sure to keep the DVDs scratch free. - Do Something Else
The best tip when it comes to television is to do something else. Use the time that you’d spend watching television to go for a walk with family, give a friend a call on the phone, or read a book. If you take the amount of time that the average person spends on television each week and put it into education, the hours add up very quickly. With the right program you can get a Master’s degree in just a few years using the time most people would invest in television.
Originally published June 9, 2008.
Good post! I actually got rid of my TV quite some time ago because I found myself too oftne watching stupid shows I actually didn’t want to watch. And that’s also just because it’s sometimes too hard to find the OFF-button on your remote control somehow. So I got rid of the thing.
I do still watch movies sometimes, but then I choose to watch myself. I rent a DVD then, and watch it on my Mac.
On the subject of amazon and netflix, I gotta recommend swaptree.com. I’ve probably gotten 50-some DVDs off of it, mostly in trade for books I haven’t read in years. It feels great to get a DVD for $2.50 in postage and a copy of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” that’s leftover from high school.
We watch a few movies each month. Instead of TV, we are learning to play musical instruments (dulcimer, recorder), taking on-line classes, building a personal web-site, and doing other things together. To wind down in the evening we read books, magazines and do sudoku. I weaned myself off of TV by first cancelling cable. Then I unplugged it and put it in the closet. In order to watch anything I had to want it badly enough to pull it out and plug it in. Try it!
@Kelg – Keeping your television in the closet is a great idea. We use to have a home theater and to keep everything simple I just wouldn’t hook up to cable unless there was something specific I wanted to watch. This only happened about once or twice a year.
@Pat – I hadn’t heard of swaptree. It looks very interesting. Thanks for point it out.
@Farfield – That is pretty much what my wife and I do. We have a LCD computer monitor hooked up to a DVD player that we’ll use occasionally as well.
Great ideas here! I definitely agree with do something else and watch movies. Movies are, for me, more rewarding, and you’re probably going to spend at least 2 hours in front of the TV anyway!
Another thing you can do, if you want to stay “semi-current” is to go to the network’s website and you can watch a lot of shows free. The downside is that a lot of them are about a week behind, so you still can’t discuss the last episode the next day, but you can a week later. It’s also a great way to see shows you missed seeing if you don’t have a PVR or DVR.
Pat: I SO agree with Swaptree.com. I have been addicted ever since I heard about the company at a “Green Living” expo in Boston. I love having a stack of books at my disposal and am always eager to get through them fast so I can trade them for something else. I even got rid of my cable TV yesterday in honor of a summer full of reading. YAY!