Why do I live without a TV

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A few months ago, my friend and I were sitting on the couch and watching another television show. In fact, there was nothing wrong or special about it - we have been doing this quite often lately. It was a pretty funny show and we really enjoyed watching it together.

The problem was that we had spent the last three hours observing the lives of completely strangers to us. During all this time, we did not say even ten words to each other.

So we sat on the couch, holding on to each other, but in reality we were infinitely far from each other. I realized that at that moment I know much more about what the main character of the film thinks than about the thoughts of my beloved bride. This thought hit me like an electric shock: how much time do we spend watching TV and how does it affect us? I decided to research the effect of television on couples and the results were not very good.

Generally speaking, couples who watch TV a lot tend to have fewer interests, unhealthy lifestyles, and overall less self-satisfaction. I started looking for examples of the positive impact of television on adults. It turned out to be not so easy. There is practically no information on the Internet explaining how TV helps adults. There are several articles on the positive impact of educational programs for the education of children, that's probably all. The last straw for me was a quote from Brian Tracy:

“Poor people have big televisions and small libraries; rich people have small televisions and huge libraries."

I decided that I wanted to be in the latter category.

After that, I talked to my beloved and persuaded her to a bold experiment: 60 days without television. She listened to my reasoning and in the end asked for only one small concession: 1 evening film a week. I figured out right away that we’ll reduce TV time from 25 hours a week to 2 hours a week - well, a reasonable offer, so I accepted her terms.

The first week was really difficult for us. We were so used to sitting on the couch in front of the screen that we just didn't know what else to do. To make matters worse, it was in the middle of the hot season in Antalya, Turkey, so walking and outdoor activities were out of the question.

After about five days, the first changes began: we started talking more … Much bigger. During these 60 days, I learned more about my friend than in the last 6 months. And I loved it. She's really cool!

In addition, we both began to devote much more time to doing other things that we always liked. I'm four times began to read more, and she I took up my favorite handicrafts … Now I have a great winter hat thanks to this experiment.

When the agreed 60 days of the experiment ended, we decided that we would watch our favorite series again. This is not much compared to the 32 hours a week the average American spends in front of the television. But the past two months were not in vain, we did not feel at all the way we expected.

I immediately felt that everything was going wrong: we again began to talk less with each other, I became much lazier and there was no time left for reading. We began to swear. This led to the fact that we mutually and consciously reinstated the rule of "one evening movie a week."

It was 8 months ago and we will never return again to the ranks of TV viewers

A short list of takeaways from this story:

1. Our relationship has become much better. And if disagreements do happen, then we talk and listen to each other, instead of hiding behind the screens again.

2. We began to cook well and eat deliciously. Now we are not in a hurry as we used to when cooking, because the transmission is about to begin. We have time to enjoy cooking and eating.

3. Our dinners are peaceful and quiet. We really enjoy socializing at the table.

4. Our vision of the future has changed. Before, we didn't have too much time to talk about the future. A lot of our thoughts revolved around the TV show we were into. Now we talk a lot about what will happen next in our life. And we know for sure that it does not depend on the TV program schedule.

5. My business has become calmer. I do not feel a constant lack of time. Even when several tasks are piling up at the same time, it is much easier for me to deal with them in the time that I used to spend on meaningless entertainment.

6. We have become more interesting. It seems very counterintuitive, because at the beginning of this experiment I was very afraid that I would no longer be able to hold a conversation about all these TV shows as I used to. But it turned out quite the opposite. Although we don't talk about TV anymore, we can talk about the books we read and the projects we are successfully working on. We've really got some great stories to talk about with our friends. Not to mention the fact that we began to cook brilliantly and everyone is waiting for us to invite them over and treat them with something:).

7. Our social life has improved. If you are not chained to the TV anymore, then you have much more time left for real communication. We try to spend at least one evening a week visiting friends. We have time to maintain old connections and make new acquaintances.

8. We have become more active. We love to walk with our dog in the park. We have done this before, but now our walks are much more frequent and longer.

These are the benefits and benefits of going away from television captivity that have crossed my mind right now. But besides this, we had a general feeling of happiness, which we lacked so much before. I don't want to lose this feeling in exchange for the right to watch TV again.

Now it's your turn: tell me what happens if you quit TV for 60 days?

Reference:

News is one of the sources of the psychology of "learned helplessness"

For the first time, the phenomenon of "educated" or "learned" helplessness was described by psychologists after a series of experiments with dogs. In the laboratory, three dogs were placed in different conditions. The first subject was exposed to an electric shock and had no way of resisting it. The second one in the cage had a button, and when pressed, the current could be turned off. The third dog was not exposed at all.

At the second stage of the experiment, the test dogs were placed in cages, from which, if desired, they could jump out. The scientists turned on the current and found the following: the second and third dogs jumped out of the cages at the signal of danger. The first, not resisting fate, remained in the cage. "Experience" told her that it would be impossible to avoid electricity, and she surrendered, as they say, without a fight.

Martin Seligman observed similar passivity in people suffering from depression, and came to the conclusion that the experience of helplessness in a hopeless situation leads to the formation of persistent motivational deficits. People get used to a situation in which nothing depends on their desires, needs, actions.

Formation of learned helplessness

The first source is the negative experience of a person experiencing unfavorable events, when there is no way to change anything. In this case, the acquired experience is automatically transferred to other situations, even to those when there is an opportunity to take risks and change something. In our country, you can now observe this phenomenon in the social sphere. People are not satisfied with the rise in prices, housing and communal services, education, medicine, but in a strange way they show helplessness, take a detached position and do not try to change anything, and only rare daredevils do something really against a negative social situation.

The second source of helplessness formation is the negative experience of seeing helpless people. Endless stories about massacres, terrorist attacks, innocent victims appear in the media, a huge infomacy wave of news makes a person passive - it is instilled in him that it is pointless to resist and make his life happier and more confident.