- There's a lot of smalltalk I can't engage in, you might not notice but there's a lot of references to TV personalities in daily interaction with people.

- Sometimes I miss big stories that are only communicated through television. Typically some documentary about online predators, horrible conditions at old people's home or such. Everyone but me seems to know.

- I'm terrible at movie trivia and references since I don't really watch any.

- I'm forced to do something when I'm bored. I can't just turn on the telly and chill out, I have to do something active like reading a book, fixing my boat or commenting on Hacker news.

- When I watch television somewhere I instantly think how much facade and how little information the medium contains. This has gotten worse over the years.

- I have a lot of freetime to do stuff.

Heh, I know exactly how you feel. Normally I'm fine with being left out of those conversations though.

"- When I watch television somewhere I instantly think how much facade and how little information the medium contains. This has gotten worse over the years."

This is also spot on, besides it feeling like a facade, it also is very very boring.

thanks for the disclaimer!

There are a lot of good books out there that deserve to be read and not a lot of TV deserving to be watched.

Like anything, sure, most of it is crap. Just like if you went to a bookstore and picked up 10 random fantasy novels. You might conclude that they're all just cookie cutter pablum - most are - but then you miss out on George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, LeGuin's Earthsea, and other truly excellent works of fiction.

But like anything, it takes some investment to tell the good from the bad. If you just watch Jon & Kate Plus 8, Entertainment Tonight, and According to Jim, yeah, you're better off without the TV altogether. But I claim that there's more good TV being made now than at any time in history, particularly for niche markets.

Here's some of my recommendations: Mythbusters, Penn & Teller's Bullshit, Supernatural, Dollhouse, The Office, 30 Rock, Lost, The Simpsons (not as great as it was, but still fun), The Daily Show/Colbert Report, Mad Men... and more, there's just a ton of really high quality work being done.

If your argument is that instead, you watch things online/through netflix, that makes sense. If I didn't enjoy live sports sometimes, I'd consider doing the same.

Not everyone has to have a hobby of watching television, or movies, or reading for that matter, but the opinion that it's all crap is extremely ill-informed and snobbish, and I strongly encourage it to be dropped as something that makes you sound actively stupid when you say it. It's an anti-pattern.

I've never blogged about this change in my TV owning situation, and never bored anyone with it. It occurred to me that I was probably not alone and having been hassled by the TV licensing people in the UK because they don't seem to believe me, I wondered how many other people don't have a working TV.

I'm not here to be holier-than-thou about it. But if you want an argument then, how about "what percentage of people who have a TV, get all defensive when they discover someone who doesn't have one?"

I'd be interested in TV owning situation for those with kids though. Not having a TV when you have kids is borderline abuse IMHO. Kids should have some exposure to popular culture, and be able to talk about the same stuff as their peers.

It's like some people who use adblock though. They just love to tell you at absolutely every single moment that they "see no ads!", I guess because it makes them feel clever.

For me, having a TV at home when I was a kid was borderline abuse. I've considered it the idiot box for as long as I can remember myself, which would be since about three years old.

When I first moved away from my parents to live with my then-GF, she kinda wanted a TV but I firmly said no.

I've never had my own TV and never will.

I can't stand being in the same room with a running TV. I always ask to mute it at least; if that isn't possible, I leave the room or cover my ears. The issue isn't the noise; it's those horrible fake intonations that everyone uses on TV.

Except I grew up with the TV always on, even if no one was watching it, it was running, when I moved out, I avoided cable and TV for a while, too busy really. Now when I visit my parents or my brothers, it drives me up the wall that the TV has to constantly be running.

You could easily call the internet the 'idiot net'. People under the delusion that their opinion matters, mindlessly posting inane useless comments like this one.

Many of the biggest sites out there serve no real use other than to waste peoples time.

Would you exchange the Web for a TV with 1000 channels?

It would be a really hard decision between TV and the web, not sure which I'd choose TBH.

That doesn't mean that any given part of the internet will be better, but it does mean that the internet has the potential to be far better.

Then I say, "why would anyone want to force TV on their children", then you say, "I don't want to force it, you're misunderstanding". I feel like we've had this discussion before, you're trolling [1].

Borderline abuse is a serious accusation, but then I'd argue providing a child frequent and regular unrestricted access to TV (or internet) is borderline abuse, so maybe we're even. I don't think you're arguing that, though, I'm just strawmanning. My kids are as involved with pop-culture as any four and three year old should be, TV will never be necessary for that. As they grow TV is going to be less and less relevant (IMHO), so the point will be moot.

Side note, just had a funny conversation with son last night trying to explain what a television station is (he watched "the spongebob movie" on Nick Jr. at the doctor's office), "it's like a website that shows movies all the time, but you can't choose them" was the best I could do.

([1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=503251)

That's me :-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/01/iplayer_does_...

Apparently soon after he left home at 18, my Grandad then went out and bought a telly, and soon after got the biggest satellite package he could.

Anyway, I don't watch TV - where would I find the time for reddit and StumbleUpon if I did?

The results so far are almost 60/40, which I find intriguing from a personal point of view because I've never known a single person in real life who didn't own a TV - geeks and otherwise.. correlating somewhat with the "official" figures of 98-99% penetration.

E.g.,

  Tom: "Lost was really cool last night"
  Jerry: "Sorry Tom, didn't see it"
  Tom: "Why? You don't like it?"
  Jerry: "I don't have a TV"

And if it isn't Lost, it is West Wing or (yikes) Nip and Tuck.

Were it not for cable, I would probably have no TV here except, perhaps, one to plug the computer in to watch a movie.

Probably not that high of a percentage. However, one is more likely to notice the people who don't own a TV and are vocal about it.

What percentage of firefox users like to tell you at every single opportunity they don't use IE?

I love movies but cable is overpriced and overrated. Until it's a la carte, I'll stick to IPTV or OTAHD.

It's funny though, because people around will be talking about some soap or sports event and I'll literally have no idea what they are talking about.

I'll admit to spending more time in front of my computer than most people spend in front of their tv...

"I don't use a broadcast, cable, satellite, or fiber video delivery service" doesn't have the same smug ring to it. And you could be watching the same content over a data network anyway.

This stuff is all merging together, and it's time to stop being so judgmental about home appliances.

For watching movies, you can't beat a good, large-screen television (or a projector I suppose) in a comfortable room.

Also, in the UK we have a reasonable (well, fairly reasonable) selection of shows on Freeview and Freesat. The BBC's recent multi-channel coverage of Glastonbury is a good example.

That said, it is a horrible distraction and I feel guilty about the power consumption of the big plasma...

Recently we've been listening to music in the evenings instead or watching content on the AppleTV, it's much better and we talk more.

I "watch" this crap mainly because I don't grok Aussie entertainment yet. Footie shows; three varieties of Rugby, all day long. And a politics scene that's even more petty than Omaha's provencial manicupal government. I still haven't gotten over the fact that Aussies are only 20M people; it just puts everything in a very tiny prespective. You would think the people who brew Toohey's Extra Dry would have enough beer goggles around to breed like bunnies. Harden the fuckup, Australia! :-P

I find even if most TV programming is pretty average and dumbed down it's still good to sit down and chill out to when you can't be bothered with anything else. Its also necessary if your a sports fan.

As a follow-up question, would you use a post-transfer model of payment to compensate for the lack of commercials?

I have a small functioning television that sits in a corner gathering. During a local disaster (bridge collapse) local news has much better coverage than the intertubes. There are some things I can't get online and guests will from time to time move it to a more convenient location to watch the news or advertising laden shows. Otherwise, it gathers dust and someday will short circuit when turned on and go poof, I am looking forward to that day.

When the kids are allowed to use their parents' desktop machine, they sometimes go to the Cartoon Network's site and watch Clone Wars reruns on it.

Now that it's back, I find myself watching ~1.5 hours a night again. I should just throw the thing out the window.

However, the technology-loving part of me recently bought a decent Sony Bravia 1080p set for the purposes of watching tv series and films with housemates, as well as the news in the evening.

Definitely nice to have for the social element, as I'd much rather not be in my room staring at a PC screen outside of work. Streaming DivX over the wireless and having the housemate's PS3 plugged into it isn't much of an inconvenience either ;).

-

Sky (which I really only watch BBC1+2, ITV and Channel 4 on at night)

Xbox 360 (which I stream TV series' and movies off from my 24/7 Ubuntu box, and of course play games)

Macbook Pro via DVI, which I stream iPlayer stuff off.

-

I must admit I watch TV way too much, but I like to chill out and think (the argument that TV makes you brain-dead while watching is just plain wrong, at least for me. I have my best ideas watching TV.)

I keep it mostly for the Wii, although I find that I use that less and less at the moment.

However, my son watches many of his favorite videos (Dora, etc) on the computer.

BTW, the largest screen in the house in on my computer.

In the last week, I've watched maybe 3 hours of television (both TV/Web stuff) in total...

"Avoid the tube".

And it works.

The tuner in the TV is never used and actually would not work as it's not connected to any source.

It's like having amazon automatically sending you the (currently) most modern books, without having any real choice.

Why on earth should I do so? If I really like a movie, I'll simply buy a DVD, because I want to see it more than once.

But guess what, I am slowly turning into an internet addict now :). Now I had to start going to the swimming pool to avoid being a couch potato with my Laptop !.

With TV, there is always one more channel to check before you turn it off. With the net, it's one more link to check out !!.

Deleted all news channels.