The primary test that I put any kind of leisure activity through is whether or not I feel better in some way during or afterwards. Most of television, for me, doesn't do that; it's a convenient way to fill some time, but leaves me feeling generally less energized than when I started.

A very good test. I find that even TV can fit this requirement if it's the right kind of TV: A 60-minute episode of The Wire, for example, leaves my mind in a vastly more engaged state than the same amount of time spent watching a few minutes of one show, changing channels, watching a few minutes of another, channel surfing, and finally concluding there's nothing on.

Good point. It's not just what you're doing in your downtime, but how you're doing it. Anything that you can make challenging, relaxing and significantly different (from work) can actually leave you more able to focus, and therefore go towards increasing your productivity.

> Would you say HN is a mind-suck?

No, I've learned a lot through it.

> I'd still ask what's so wrong about being "unproductive" some of the time?

Nothing. But TV tends to make me unproductive for more of the time than I want.

What? That has nothing to do with TV. It has everything to do with your apparent lack of self control. If I spend 45 minutes watching TV or 45 minutes playing with myself, what's the difference? They're both time that I could spend doing other things.

edit: And I never just watch TV anyway, I'm always doing something else, like coding or reading HN or looking at code on GitHub.

> That has nothing to do with TV. It has everything to do with your apparent lack of self control.

I do have self-control, at least regarding TV. That's why I don't watch it at all. (I do have a television, it is gathering dust in a cupboard.)

> If I spend 45 minutes watching TV or 45 minutes playing with myself, what's the difference?

It is quite easy -- and millions of people do it -- to spend an entire evening watching TV. I dunno about you, but I have never spent 5 hours non-stop masturbating :-). So the one activity is self-limiting, but the other isn't.