9 Reasons you should consider watching much less (or no) television.

9 Reasons you should consider watching much less (or no) television.

1. It's a massive waste of time - The amount of time needed to truly keep up with a series is staggering. In addition to this, the easy viewability of TV makes people prone to binge watching -- a phenomenon where you watch several episodes in succession, only to find that you don't remember much of what happened in the episodes at all; meaning you just wasted time doing absolutely nothing. The average American spends 5 hours watching television each day; that's 6 wasted days every month!

2. Unrealistic standards - Television uses impossibly attractive people to fill roles which display impossible levels of emotion and awe. Friends are impossibly friendly and considerate, jokes are always perfectly timed, and people are always impossibly brilliant. The simple truth is that it is impossible to live a life that even comes close to the awesomeness shown in most TV shows. That's because TV takes the most awesomely emotional parts of life, and cuts out all the boring drudgery. The problem is that in order to achieve anything even remotely awesome in REAL life, you need to be able to deal with drudgery. And the more TV you watch, the less you are able to.

Attractive people on television are ridiculously attractive, and "ugly" people on tv are still more attractive than average. There's nothing wrong with being attractive, but watching the nation's top 0.1% of physiques and faces for hours on end can only set you up for disappointment. Which brings me to my next point...

3. It kills your attention span - Television is mental junk food. In the same way that eating nothing but cheetos and bacon bits kills your ability to enjoy real food, watching too much TV kills your ability to enjoy real LIFE. This is because watching TV allows you to live vicariously through the characters you're watching--and your life is always less exciting than theirs. When you get accustomed to this level of excitement/awesomeness/emotion, your own life feels dissatisfying, and you'll generally look for more TV to watch.

4. It's not real - Self explanatory, TV isn't real. Nothing on TV will ever provide a tangible benefit to your actual life. Unless you work in hollywood.

5. It's a passive activity - You don't do anything mentally or physically interesting when you watch TV. In fact, most people tend to tune out. You may as well be meditating or sleeping (these options would probably be a lot better for you).

6. Stereotypes - If you're a racial minority, or a woman, TV regularly pidgeonholes people who look like you into roles that negatively affect the way society sees you. And if you're an avid watcher of TV, you tend to internalize these associations, and it carries on to how you perceive and treat people in your real, day-to-day life.

7. Commercials - Unless you're torrenting, you're wasting even more time watching commercials. And these commercials are affecting you, whether you want to believe so or not.

8. It costs a lot - Self explanatory. You'd save bundles by cutting out your cable/satellite subscription.

9. There are just so many better things to do with your life.

Children who watch more TV have poor academic outcomes: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/8471072/#.VsAdx5orLIV

"Primitive" brain regions take over when watching TV, and abstinence causes physiological effects of withdrawal: https://www.familyresource.com/lifestyles/mental-environment/television-opiate-of-the-masses

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Most Helpful Guy

  • You're probably right. But I still can't imagine my life without the lessons learned from my favourite sci-fi show or the imaginary fictional friends I've made. Try making real friends, you say? Been there, failed at that. D: TV also provides us with educational programming, documentaries, interviews with scientists, artists and world leaders, important live events like the moon landing or the Olympics, crucial news coverage, old movies we've missed, etc. 5 hours a day is too much but it'd be impossible to completely do without TV in any form. In the future, what will you do during the Mars landing, read a good book?

Most Helpful Girl

  • i agree completely, i watch minimal tv personally i would rather be cuddling up next to a book or yes, using the internet. but i do enjoy reading a LOT, and tv not so much.

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What Girls & Guys Said

0 3
  • I don't own a TV. I watch maybe three hours a week through the magic of streaming.

    I greatly prefer something where I am an active participant, whether it's exercising, or socialising, or playing games, anything. I think, for this same reason, I don't care about professional sports, since it's sitting and watching other people play a game.

  • those are really stupid reasons

  • I hardly watch TV 📺
    Nice take by the way 👍