Is watching TV your most common everyday activity?

[claws]

It's certainly not my most common everyday activity. In fact, I can go months without watching TV. How about you?

[Mofo Rising]

When I moved into my latest house, I decided not to renew my contract with the local cable company.

I have a television, and I have an antenna capable of receiving broadcast television, but I never turn it on.

I visited my brother recently, and he literally turned on the television whenever he entered a room that contained one. I can tell you I literally hate the pointless chattering of almost every show on television. Wasted time.

Don't get me wrong, I love good television shows. But I watch them all by Netflix, or in rare cases, Hulu.

So this constant input that television provides is pretty much alien to me. I no longer have any connection with the shared culture of television. That means I never see commercials, and when people tell me about them, I have no idea what they're talking about. Good riddance.

Then again, there's s**t that runs non-stop for the channel-flipping folks that I have no idea about. Maybe I'm out of touch.

I'll admit I still have no idea about the ins-and-outs of the Casey Anthony trial. I gather it was talked about endlessly on television? I don't watch television.

Is that something I should care and worry about? I literally never have to waste my time watching television commercials, and I'm stunned when I see them how stupid they are.

I gave up television, and I don't regret it at all. That said, I spend a lot of wasted time surfing the internet.

[RCMerchant]

Yes. Because I have no life.
I have basic cable.I dont pay for it. I steal it. I live in a low rent apartment building,so I went into the laundry room and pluged in my cable.
I come home from work and watch the news on chanel 17,turn it to chanel 2 to see BONANZA and ROUTE 66 (one of the best tv dramas ever),then back to 17 for 2 And a Half men reruns.Back to PBS. Or to 13 for Criminal Minds reruns. Or else I listen to music and drink.
Such is my life
Otherwise I read- A LOT. I'm a book worm.

[RCMerchant]

To put it into perspective of my every day life-I work from 8 to 4:30 evry day at a factory-so I have interaction with humans-low life race that they are.

[WilliamWeird1313]

On one hand, yes. But on the other hand, I'm not so sure it counts in my case, entirely. I'm the type of guy who always has to have something going, making noise in the background. So I'll have the TV on literally all day long when I'm home, but I'll often be doing other things without really paying attention to it.

As far as actual shows I watch regularly, there are verrrry few. There are maybe a handful, tops. Doctor Who and Community are the first to spring to mind. Most of the shows I reeeeally enjoy are older, and I experience solely through either DVD or syndicated reruns. I'm not really into the Hulu/NetFlix type thing. It's funny, I used to complain about sucky Blockbuster was, about how they muscled out the mom-and-pop video stores and replaced them with sterlized mainstream suckfests, but now I'm rooting for the company (as UTTERLY hopeless a pursuit as that is) just because the whole going-into-a-store-wandering-up-and-down-the-aisles-finding-something-on-the-shelf-with-cool-cover-art-that-you've-never-heard-of-before experience means a lot to me, and I hate to see it go the way of the dodo due to our culture's (I feel) over-emphasis on on-demand, fast-and-easy high-tech convenience. Convenient is one thing, and I admit it's seductive and addictive, but there's something to be said, I think, for the things you experience as a byproduct of INconvenience.

I'm sorry. I'm digressing from the main topic BIG time. Didn't mean to go off on a spiel.

Getting back to my relationship with TV, I think maybe part of the reason I feel more comfortable having it on, at least in the background, so much is from being raised as one of those kids whose parents kinda plopped him in front of the TV and used that as a babysitter. TV gets a bad wrap, I think. Even though I admit that there's little on in today's programming that really attracts me, as a medium, I like it a lot. It suits my own writing style (talking fiction here, FYI, which, yes, I do write on the side). I like episodic storytelling. I think that TV has more to offer a storyteller than film, in truth. With movies, you get maybe 2 hours to unravel you're tale, and then you hope for sequels. If you're lucky, you get to stretch into an endless franchise. But with TV (this is assuming you get at least a whole season, mind you) you really get to deal with at least 3 primary plot arcs (not counting sideplots, which both TV and film can sprinkle in to the point of bursting should they feel like it): you get the plot of the episode, the connective plot of the season, and then the overall plot of the entire series. I like that, and I like the ability to keep audiences in suspense by leaving a bombshell or a question mark at the end of an episode and then making you come back to find out the rest next week. Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.

Sorry, I'm tangenting all over the place again.

As I was saying, I think TV gets a bad wrap. "Idiot box." "Rots your brain." Yada yada yada. I'm tempted to say "I was raised on it and, look at me, I turned out fine" but that's just opening myself up for wayyyy too many easy jokes. I mean, I am on the BadMovies.org forums here, so maybe it did rot my brain. Just a wee bit. Lol. Seriously though, I did grow up on TV and it was my babysitter for a long time as a kid, but I credit a lot of who I am today (a person I, for the most part, am generally happy to be) to how I was raised. Early child of divorce. One parent. Working mom. Home alone, watching TV. Watching Swamp-Thing cartoons and Adam West Batman episodes on video. I remember discovering USA Up All Night and TNT MonsterVision as a kid. I often joke, to this day, that my real parents were Joe Bob Briggs and Rhonda Shear. I remember the first time I saw Maximum Overdrive on MonsterVision. For some bizarre reason, that movie left a huge impression on me. Even bigger was the time I stayed up late when my mom went out drinking during her semi-alcoholic phase (long in the past now, thankfully) and caught the Tom Savini-directed remake of NOTLD on MonsterVision. I saw that version of NOTLD before I ever saw the original, and I feel that particular random-change viewing is the experience that really made me into the hardcore horror fan I am today.

Even as I type these words now, the TV is on not five feet to the left of me. The volume is low, and an infomercial for the RugDoctor is on. I'm not paying any attention, but for some reason I just like having it on.

::shrugs:: Whatever. Maybe I'm just a financial masochist who gets off on pointlessly cranking up the electric bill.

[AndyC]

I'm the same way. There might be a couple of hours of programming in an evening I really want to sit down and watch, but I might have the TV or a movie or something playing all day while I work, just to kind of half listen to. At work, I wear a Bluetooth headset and have MST3k, Rifftrax, Mythbusters or whatever playing at my desk while I do things elsewhere in the shop. Used to have a second monitor pointed that way so I could watch as well, but I hardly ever looked at it. Just need the background noise.

I have once or twice started to laugh for no apparent reason while dealing with a customer. I'm sure they assume the headset is for phone calls, and not that I've got something funny playing on it.

[Jack]

I play video games and watch DVD's / stream Netflix movies on my TV.  It's very rare that it gets used to watch actual television programming.  Maybe a sporting event once in a while, but even that's losing its luster.  When they started cutting away from the football game within 5 seconds of someone getting injured so they could show more commercials, I lost interest.  Timeouts have apparently gone from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, taking the whole idea of wearing down the opposing team's defense with a long offensive drive and turning it into a complete farce.

[Psycho Circus]

I gave up on TV about 2 years ago. There's never anything enjoyable or educational on anymore. Just mindless reality shows and reruns. I only switch the TV on maybe once or twice a week to watch a dvd.

[Killer Bees]

Right now I'm watching 4 or more hours a day.  Not actually TV but DVDs.  Occasionally I'll change over to 24 hour news, watch a cycle and turn back to DVDs.

I'm being a hermit these days, so apart from work and groceries, I shut myself away and watch stories from other people's lives because I'm not interested in participating in my own life.

[Mr. DS]

Depends on the day for me but for the most part I'd say I hardly watch TV.  I tape a few shows weekly most of which is on the History Channel.  The ones I watch regularly are Oddities, Swamp People, Mounted In Alaska, American Pickers and sometimes Pawn Stars and American Restoration.  Once in a blue moon I'll watch a documentary show I may get caught up in. Usually they center around supernatural stuff and cryptology.  

Occasionally I'll go on a Jeopardy kick but right now I'm off it.  My life is too nutty with three kids so I get in what I fit in TV wise.   I prefer to spend time on the internet more than anything.

[venomx]

I gave up on TV about 2 years ago. There's never anything enjoyable or educational on anymore. Just mindless reality shows and reruns. I only switch the TV on maybe once or twice a week to watch a dvd.

Right on, man. I gave up 4 years ago. I hate reality shows and Imo new cartoons are wack.

just give me the internet, and some old DVDs! I'm happy.

[LilCerberus]

I leave it on all the time, mostly with the sound turned down.
The room feels strangely cold without it.

[Criswell]

I only have  a few shows I even enjoy. So depending on if they're showing its usually 30 minutes or less.

When I move out ill likely not even bother getting cable. Any shows I want I can see online and I have plenty of DVD's for entertainment.

[bob]

For actual television it is on a lot more during NFL season. When it's not there are very few shows I watch.

However, my tv is usually on for a few hours a day as I get through at least one movie on most days,

[AndyC]

I only have  a few shows I even enjoy. So depending on if they're showing its usually 30 minutes or less.

When I move out ill likely not even bother getting cable. Any shows I want I can see online and I have plenty of DVD's for entertainment.

We've come to pretty much the same conclusion, and will probably cancel our satellite for a while, just to try it. The classic shows, reruns and movies are cheaper and more convenient to get online or elsewhere, as are the few current shows we follow. Half the time, we end up getting them online at a more convenient time anyway. The satellite company just keeps trying to squeeze more money for less service, so screw them.