Why I Hate TV

One of the most sane days of my life is when I convinced my roomates in college to keep the TV in the closet and get it out only when we were going to watch it. This stemmed from the frustration that someone would turn it on and when they were finished they would walk away and leave it on. There were a few problems with this habit. One, it was a waste of electricity. Two, it created racket that was distracting. Three, and most importantly, I would inevitably get sucked in like a thread in a new vacuum cleaner. I was no match for it's luring power, the way a piece of Sonic ice is no match for the oversized red straw jutting out of the cup connected to a thirsty football player. I wanted to get rid of the tube completely (you can imagine how that went over in an apartment full of testoterone filled sport fanatics), so keeping it in the closet except on game day was a compromise. My newfound freedom felt incredible. I found time I never knew I had. It was so liberating I vowed a life axiom, "I would live life without the comfort, no, burden of television." When I got engaged, I explained my feelings to my fiance. After very little debate about watching the news, to which I reasoned we could get a subscription to a newspaper or listen to the radio, she eagerly agreed. After two and a half years we have no regrets. Now, I must clarify...we own a television, but we do not watch TV. It is plugged into a DVD/VCR player and we use it when we watch movies. When we are not watching a movie it stays in the closet. Cheating? Splitting hairs? We don't think so. It's not something we are legalistic about. And we know that we don't have a monopoly on "television morals." We just want to get our entertainment in a way in which we set the rules. In other words, we can easily gauge the amount of time we spend in front of a television set, the quality of the entertainment, and do it without greed producing commercials. Broadcast TV is designed to entertain you, and keep you entertained for hours on end. You sit down, zone out for several hours, go to bed, go to work, and then do it all over again the next day. Is TV effective at what it does? You've all heard the statistics: the average american spends 4 HOURS/DAY in front of the TV! Youth spend 900 hours per year in school and and average of 1500 hours per year watching TV. When we tell people that we don't watch TV, (these conversations mainly arise because people assume we are aware of the latest and greatest reality show and want to discuss it) their response is inevitably, "What do you do with your time?" We never know what to say. We usually respond with, "We are so busy, we don't know how we could spend time watching TV!" So, I've tried to account for all the time I would have spent watching TV. One thing we love to do is read (as you can tell if you ever visit this blog). We spend an average of 1.5 to 2 hours per day reading. We TRY to walk to the park every day, although we have been slacking lately. When we go, that usually spends about an hour of our afternoon. We ALWAYS eat supper together at the table. And we spend at least an hour and a half in good conversation every evening (more of course when we go on walks). Contrast that with the average amount of time parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5 MINUTES/DAY! Among other things, our non-TV lifestyle has allowed us to pursue several hobbies: reading, quilting, blogging, training Meisha, cooking, gardening, praying, learning Chinese from a friend, etc. In addition, I attribute a great deal of my relationship with A to this lifestyle. I would like to end my rant with a quote that really hits the nail on the head. This comes from John Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life, which has a section titled Television, the Great Life-Waster.

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up (editor's note: OUCH!). The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are (editor's note: commercials account for 30% of air time) enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching. The greater problem is balanity (editor's note: dull or stale because of overuse). A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind is made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels.

In conclusion, I did not write this to say, "Look at me, don't I have life all figured out!" But to say that the Lord has graciously given me a more abundant life as a result of being obedient to Him in this area. While not all struggle in this area, I believe there is wonderful deliverance for those wanting to truly make the precious handful of moments we have on this earth count. The Word says that our life is but a vapor. A.C. Nielsen Co. says that Americans will spend 9 years of their life in front of the television. When we stand before the Timeless one, how will we account for each breath we were given?