An article on CNN.com today asks Where have all the viewers gone?; the answer is simple -- we're here. A few months ago I wrote about getting rid of our TV and why we did it. The short answer is we want to raise healthy kids and protect them as best we can from mega-corps' advertising budgets. With cable and TiVo there was a 24 hour a day guarantee of something to stare at on the tube. We don't want our kids glued in front of a screen (any screen, so this includes computer- and digital game-time). We've found that when our kids spend too much time with these they turn into uber brats - seriously.
I never thought I'd be the one saying "when I was a kid...", but really, we had under eight channels to pick from total, and the shows we were interested in were only on until about 9am -- giving our parents a few more Zs than I'm getting, I'm sure. Once the shows were over, we'd be sent out of the house to play and we loved it.
So, the TV is gone, and my kids are forced to play just like I was as a kid. That doesn't mean I don't miss it -- especially when insomnia hits as it often does -- but I get my news and entertainment elsewhere. I've even started reading books again (don't laugh).
I do have a couple shows I follow online after the children are a-bed, and I'm happy to keep my list down to a "couple" (you'll find them here and here). If The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were online in their entirety, I'd probably watch those, too (see how easy it is to get sucked back in?) -- it just bugs me that Comedy Central only shows select snippets.
good on you for no tv! I couldn't care if I never watched another hour of it!
Posted by: Tiel | May 11, 2007 at 05:57 AM