For the month of August my family has done away with our TV. We have not turned it on once – except for the DVD my wife and I watched a couple of weekends ago. No shows, no cartoons, no football, and no PGA Championship – okay, so I watched a few holes online:).
Going into this experiment I was a little anxious over how I would spend my time without the TV. You see, I like to think I don’t watch too much, I can even play it off as if I really don’t watch it at all – but come to find out, I watch quite a bit more than I thought.
Our typical schedule (before this month) – cartoons for the kids in the morning, I’d turn on the tube in the afternoon while eating lunch and sometimes it wouldn’t turn off until late afternoon. The evenings would be spent as a family without the TV, but after the kids went to bed, it would be right back to the TV until we went to sleep.
Man that’s a lot.
Even worse, on the weekends the TV would be on almost the whole day. It may not be watched the entire time, but it’d be on.
Needless to say, going a month without the TV meant there would be a lot of time freed up – what would we do with all this time?
Today we are on day 17, and thus far it’s been great!
We’ve really only missed it a couple of times. In the mornings, breakfast is together either out on the back porch or in the kitchen. The kids play puzzles and with toys more. The evenings are pretty much the same as before, we play outside, work on the garden, or head to the park. But after the kids go to bed, my wife and I either work on a puzzle together, sit outside and talk, get little projects done, or spend our time in other pursuits (wink).
The first week of this experiment I noticed my stress level was a little higher – it seems that TV was a stress reliever for me. On top of that, my parents came to visit for a couple of days (I’m proud to say they joined in the experiment with us while they were there). Once we adjusted to life without TV, we’ve used the time to do other things.
Without the TV, we fold and put away the laundry as soon as it’s dry. We’ve decluttered and organized the kitchen and other parts of the house. We play more games with the kids. I’ve read 2 books and am almost finished with the 3rd. We talk and interact more. We dream. Plan. Play. Laugh. Dance.
Our journey is ongoing, how’s yours? Did you join us? You still can.
Share your journey in the comments below.
Photo courtesy Aaron Escobar™
Corey is the editor of Simple Marriage as well as a licensed marriage & family therapist. While he has a Ph.D. in Family Therapy, he only occasionally likes to be called doctor. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so you don't miss any future posts.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Super for you Corey! There is NO WAY that my dad would have missed golf if he was over my house. LOL!
I have been listening to more radio and reading more. I am working on various creative projects, necklaces, a mosaic, sewing…It’s a good thing for me.
But I think I talk on the phone more when I am not into some sort of distraction.
I LOVE your challenge (although Sesame Street is my lifesaver from 7-8 pm every night!) I love the you read and played and interacted more. I don’t think that we’ll ever wished we had watched more TV when we’re 85. I’m going to try this for a week….baby steps
My dream!
I grew up without a TV, an oddity among our friends, I don’t think I knew anyone else who didn’t have a TV. I would love to get rid of it altogether, I’m sure we could do very well without it.
We are just back from 6 weeks away , the kids only watch 10min of video on the laptop in the car when they were getting really cranky at the end of a long journey. In 6 weeks, they never asked for it, always came up with other things to do.
I am curious what you do with your online time; you mentioned watching the PGA, but what about news and other information? Do you read papers (if any are left!), read online or do you listen to talk radio?
With so much going on in the world that affects our lives and our kids future, being totally unplugged would frighten me.
I’ve been on a news fast for almost a year now. I still keep up with things via the front page of Yahoo (which I scan but rarely read in-depth) and friends. It’s actually been quite nice not knowing most of what goes on. Anything major happens, I still find out about it.
I’ve never owned my own TV, and enjoyed not having one. My college roommates always had one, and it annoyed me how much they watched, but mostly because I got sucked into watching it with them and my free time disappeared. And most of what we watched was superficial, uneducational and unenlightening.
I know I fill that extra time with computer surfing – news, blogs, Twitter, etc. I’ve thought about cutting back. Your idea of a news fast would be an interesting test for me. I think news and Internet and TV can be useful if you use them purposefully, if you know what you’re looking for and how long you’ll spend, and then you turn it off or put it away.
Wow…. no, I couldn’t do that. I need a variety of points of view to compare and contrast against my own values; I know what I believe in and what is right for my family, and contrasting that against others is what I look towards in news and politics.
But that’s me; as for TV in general, other than ‘24′ I haven’t found much to attract me in many years.
I just joined and am so excited to see you have tried this! We are a TV free family and love it! I don’t ever plan on going back! It is true, TV eats up so much previous time and precious memories to be had with babies.
We did this as a family when I was a kid. We did so much more stuff. Talked more for a start, ate dinner at the dinner table, spent time in front of the fire. I’d be pretty keen to try this again as an adult although I fear it’s the internet I need to have a break from as I sit here reading blogs while watching telly.
Good luck
When we married my husband & I made a conscious decision not to have a tv. There wasn't much on it worth watching and we both felt it would be detrimental to our relationship if we had one. When our children came along we felt even more protective and refrained from getting one to babysit them – we did that ourselves! Of course they did watch a bit here and there – at their grandparents, on holidays, or at friends' places. Now they are all living away from home they decide what and when they watch, but on the whole they are not really interested. However, if you start talking movies that's another story!!
When we married my husband & I made a conscious decision not to have a tv. There wasn't much on it worth watching and we both felt it would be detrimental to our relationship if we had one. When our children came along we felt even more protective and refrained from getting one to babysit them – we did that ourselves! Of course they did watch a bit here and there – at their grandparents, on holidays, or at friends' places. Now they are all living away from home they decide what and when they watch, but on the whole they are not really interested. However, if you start talking movies that's another story!!
We gave up the TV four years ago and life has been great. My husband and I spend a lot more time chatting at the end of the day. I sleep better – probably because I go to bed when I’m tired instead of zoning out in front of the TV.
And when we moved into a smaller space with an awkward living room, not having to decorate around the TV made life so much easier.
Are you going to extend the experiment for another month?
I don’t think we will do away with the TV entirely, but we are going to be very intentional about TV going forward. We are planning on watching some football games but we are doing away with the mindless watching and are striving to severely limit TV to only the times we both want to watch. If we get too wrapped up in it again we’ve discussed doing away with it all together.
We’ll see how it unfolds.