I’ll even up the snobbery a little bit in that the ONLY terrestrial radio I have listened to in the past two years is NPR ;-P However I do listen to streaming internet music, but I only loosely call that as *radio*.

Oh, and why did I stop? I’d say a mix of #1 and #2.

I just gave it up, although I do miss COPS reruns.

I have just given up on Cox’s DVR. Pretty much useless when compared to even a TIVO. I’m hoping to create a box which uses Sage or Myth and use it as a video jukebox.

Now all i need are a few terabyte raid drive arrays. (that don’t drown out the TV)

How do you want to live your life? What do you want to accomplish? I bet you didn’t just say “sit on my butt eating junk food and staring at a stupid show”. Stop watching tv 3+ hours a day and you just might get some of whatever you did say done.

Just because you were incapable of making good decisions when it came to divvying up your time and money with tv in the loop doesn’t mean other people can’t.

I use the internet pretty regularly so I do still pay for that, and any shows I care for (The Office, South Park, It’s Always Sunny in Philly) I catch online or buy on DVD. Since I stopped wasting away watching TV, I’ve gone back to school and am almost done with my first AA degree. Kill your TV, people!

Okay, I started to, but you began to climb that high horse and I gave up.

Like what? What makes watching something that one derives some form of satisfaction from (whether in the form of new information, “mindless” delight, or what-have-you) any less valid as a thing-to-do?

Get off your high-horses. What, just because you’re reading it’s a better use of your time? Have you seen some of the dreck people read? What’ it’s more “intellectual” because it’s on paper instead of phosphor? Or how about the exercise lobby? Just because you’re “outdoors” it’s a better use of your time?

There’s ALWAYS something else to do, that’s the bane of your modern civilized existence. You wouldn’t BE worrying about what to do if your life were dictated by the realities of a hard-scrabble existence – the same plight that still exists in other parts of the world. So stop being all high-and-mighty and take a good long look at your “I’m doing something better” remonstrations.

As far as I’m concerned, if you’re not doing anything that DIRECTLY benefits another human being (helping old people cross the street, making and delivering sandwiches to elderly homeless, visiting patients at a children’s hospital, tending that garden of veggies which you intend to give out to the needy, etc), then you’re just as much of a time-waster as the couch potato you’re denigrating.

That being said, the article doesn’t make clear whether:

1) No TV = no physical display devices in the home.
2) No TV = Display device(s) present, but no cable / satellite service; however playback devices (DVD player, VCR, game console, etc) present.
3) No TV = ditto #2, add OTA antenna
4) No TV = ditto #3, subtract playback devices

Each of the above options entails entirely different things, as some commenters have already stated. It’s also bothersome that most “intellectuals” who claim not to own / watch TV take the view that the lumpenmasse who do are somehow less intelligent or educated than they.

Why is discovery of new facts or frontiers only acceptable if it comes from dead trees or classrooms? In today’s information-saturated world, you’d have to be a total Luddite to still maintain the fiction that TV = network OTA broadcasts only. BBC (and the BBC America variant), PBS (in all affiliate permutations), Discovery, TLC, Science Channel, History Channel, etc etc etc – each of these channels offer well-produced and – let’s face it and accept the fact – easily-digestible content which serve to expand a person’s knowledge and view of the world. And who’s to say that, once piqued, that same person couldn’t go out and read more about a given subject?

To paraphrase a famous archaeologist’s father, “it tells me that Goose-stepping morons like these should try watching TV instead of burning them!”

The longer I go without watching it, the more irritating some things about it become. ‘Laugh tracks’ on sitcoms, for example, are incredibly annoying after a year or so of not being exposed to them. Commercials drive me crazy. Wading through an hour of news when I can get what I want to know in a few minutes of reading online makes no sense.

Add a lack of much worth watching, and I’m glad to do about anything else other than flip through 200+ channels for 20 minutes, trying in vain to find something that interests me.

I’d probably fall into the socially liberal but fiscally conservative stereotype. I don’t watch because there’s nothing worth watching (that can’t wait for DVDs) and I find that I’m happier and calmer without the anxiety inducing advertising and “news”.

Anyway, land lady cut off the cable in the spring, and I decided not to put it back up on my own dime. Thought I’d see how well I’d fair without it.

My life and the way I conceptualize some things has definitely changed without the constant exposure to advertising. I find I’m much more susceptible to an ad when I DO come across one now.

Still, now I find myself spending too much time at the computer, surfing and watching tv on it instead. My attention span is nil because of the over load of media choices in one spot.

Personally, I’m going to bring the tv cable back. At least then I did a multitude of other chores and respectable activities while it was on in the background.

Now we watch some select stuff (The Office, Project Runway, How It’s Made), but it’s very hard not to get sucked into watching hours at a time while criticizing it at the same time. He built a free DVR, so we don’t watch commercials or get sucked into whatever is on next. Anytime we watch tv in real-time we can’t stand the ads anymore, so we just don’t.

Soon the internet will encompass TV, right? I can’t really get all uppity about not watching TV since I spend hours online, but I do think choosing my own interactive content is better than watching whatever programming is on the box in front of me, and at least here I can usually ignore the ads. I also like the fluidity of links, especially on wikipedia (grain of salt there, too).

Do I use my laptop and iPhone to watch shows when I want and commercial free? Hell yes. Do I watch shows from overseas with *usually* half-decent subtitles (anime, Kdrama, etc.) which are not delayed, dubbed, and repackaged to suit the ‘typical US audience/western tastes’? Hells yes.

And yes, programming today is so poor there are not enough words to express the vacuous, banal, steaming s***pile which continues to ooze out of Los Angeles.

Oh, amen to that! You made me smile and sigh in sadness at the same time.

I have a TV for two reasons: videogames, and the occasional movie or TV series. I don’t watch TV because my two main purposes for watching it are fulfilled by other sources: namely, information and entertainment.

I have the Internet and countless alternate information sources both mainstream and fringe. Why do I need Fox News?

I have videogames and movies. Why do I need commercial break-laden cut-for-TV movies or assinine sitcoms? Or reality TV?

One of the new shows that my kids & I enjoy is Wipeout! Funny, funny stuff; especially the hosts.

Is it seriously “surprising” to people that some people don’t watch TV by choice? Saying some people don’t bathe by choice would surprise me, but watching TV, a passive hobby activity?

My parents are notorious TV junkies–the television runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and only goes off if a storm cuts the power. The most radical thing they will do is mute the thing when we come over, or turn on Closed Captioning. And they have one in EVERY ROOM. I have to go outside most of the time, because it makes it hard to keep up a conversation when you have this glaring screen of hypnotically shifting color beaming at you.

The funny thing is, how many people comment on my young son’s incredible imagination and his storytelling abilities. He can entertain himself–and us–for hours.

–TwoDragons

I usually watch news after dinner and thats it..
I do actually watch alot of series and movies, but I do so on my PC on my own terms (and without &%&*$ commercials)

TV is *SO* 1993.. =]

Yeah, I don’t watch anything on television, but with the internet in it’s current state it’s not hard to stay in-touch with what people are talking about.

Seasons are too long (Lost), the jokes are few (House) and the adverts many (Anything we import from the States). Sometimes you only get to see the opening credits before someone’s hawking something. Maybe I have been spoilt by the BBC in that regard.

Mind you, there is always Jeremy Kyle if you want to build up a sense of righteous anger.

I think the problem is that fewer shows are aimed at families. We used to all gather to watch Carol Burnett or All in the Family or Columbo. What family wants to watch Desperate Housewives together?