I haven't had a tv since 1999. It does make it hard to follow conversations at times, as I don't follow most popular shows. I have for the past few years kept up with the Simpsons and Family Guy online and I read enough blogs and stuff that I don't feel like the lack of television has been a major stumbling block socially.

I really really want to get a tv for playing console video games, but I'm scared I'd use it to watch television. I got rid of it in the first place because it was eating up all my free time.

You can use a computer monitor to play console games, at least with the newer ones you can.

I have a TV & watch TV programs but i've recently been freed from the TV schedule, when I had broadband fitted they offered a Tivo box & over the course of the 18 month contract i'll pay an extra £10 so I thought why not?

I don't see TV as a problem but having to keep an eye on the clock & be home for your latest episode is a pain, now I can play Xbox all night & when I go offline I unwind with an hour or two of my fave shows such as Star Trek, SG1, NCIS etc...
TV can take over your life & Tivo has handed my life back to me on a silver platter

There's no good programming on nowadays, anyway.  When I do watch TV, I usually watch DVD boxsets of Star Trek, or I watch movies.

Quote from: LordKAT on August 31, 2013, 08:29:37 PM
You can use a computer monitor to play console games, at least with the newer ones you can.

I didn't realize this. I don't like the guns and killing games, but I regret wholeheartedly missing out on Final Fantasy and Zelda sequels.

I might be canceling my internet and getting a smartphone soon anyhow though. Pretty sure I can get tetris or something on a phone and be satisfied.

Quote from: Felix on September 05, 2013, 12:49:54 AM
I didn't realize this. I don't like the guns and killing games, but I regret wholeheartedly missing out on Final Fantasy and Zelda sequels.

I might be canceling my internet and getting a smartphone soon anyhow though. Pretty sure I can get tetris or something on a phone and be satisfied.

You would need a monitor with HDMI input, TVs and Monitors these days are getting more and more alike.  You can hook a PC up to your TV or a blueray player/console up to a monitor because everything is HDMI now.  If you don't already have a monitor with HDMI, TVs of the same size are quite a bit cheaper than monitors and you can use it as both, the only thing is using it as a monitor can sometimes require some fiddling with settings on the PC and on the TV.

Interesting how many dont watch TV here. Nice to hear. I rarely do. My friend who I live with in cohousing does watch a lot, so occasionally I join in, there are about 3 or 4 shows, most of them monthly that I actually enjoy - mostly political satire. I do however like to watch DVDs or recordings at times, so I really like some documentaries, some movies and a few serials actually (No new Dr Who episode will go unwatched), but most of what is on TV otherwise these days, especially private/commercial TV stations is just junk...

Wow.. I agree, this thread has been really fascinating to read through. I thought I was in the minority with never turning on my TV (I basically use it as an over sized alarm clock Lol!).

I do watch a ton of TV series though, but I suppose I am of a 'younger' generation in that I figure out exactly what I want to see and then download it. I am always confounded when people talk about having to catch some tv show at a certain date or time, or how some network is no longer showing their favorite series.. TV with a set programming schedule is sooo last millennia 

I have been unplugged from cable tv for well over a year. It started when I bought an apple tv and then a few coworkers kept urging me to jailbreak it. Eventually I gave in and then installed the app XBMC. It's a sort of operating system on its own for video and audio apps.

It's funny when my coworker are talking about tv commercials or tv shows, I just don't know and honestly I don't really even care. If the show comes to Netflix streaming, then I will watch it. If it never does, then no biggie.

To me TV watching at night is something I do to put light and sound in the bedroom so that I can fall asleep. I put on movies and tv shows I have probably watched over and over so that I don't have to concentrate on the story. It makes noise and then I fall asleep I use my XBMC app to watch new releases of movies. I still go to the movies to watch movies I am pretty sure I will like. Some movies I am glad have turned out to be real stinkers and I wouldn't have paid money to watch in a theater, rent a DVD, etc.

And I don't even want to think about going to the movies. These days it unbelievably sucks. So many people spend the entire movie on their phones disrupting the movie experience for everyone else. I've actually had to ask people to turn off their cell phones in the theaters before. So I try and find movies in IMAX since the tickets cost so much more that the texting tweeners can't afford it.

If Hollywood wants to keep the gravy train running, they need to stop listening to their lawyers and start listening to the people. The content they produce is just not worth the price they are asking for it. Some of the small fry on youtube channels and podcasts exceed the quality of any hollywood produced show for content and quality. As for cable channels, there are tons of people who re-broadcast live TV on the Internet, that I can watch through the NAVI-X app.literally any tv station anywhere in the world that someone pays for, is available online, and you know what? I still don't watch it.

I think abandoning "TV" would be kind of like abandoning the Internet or the telephone. It is just one type of media device. The thing to change is, I think, is how you use it. My late mother had a habit of turning the TV on early in the day and just leaving it on all day-- through the news, soap operas, game shows and endless dreadful commercials. To me this would be agonizing. When I first moved away from home I went several years without a TV in my apartment. It was fine for me, though. I read books. I listened to music. I went out a lot. I was in my 20s.

I've always been a fan of movies and better Hollywood productions for TV. I think today much of the best writing is being done for TV. So many movies now are just massively budgeted, but weakly scripted duplications of each other.

With the advent of the VCR back in the 80s I basically liberated myself from bad TV. I just started taping whatever was good, fast forwarding through the commercials and watching when and if I was ready. Today we have electronic recording that makes this even easier. The vast majority of what's listed in the TV schedule are things I never see. Still, I find I record, on average an hour or two per day of high quality programming, which works out just fine for me.

~ Lyric ~