TV quality these days is abysmal. That was the reason Petra and I decided to completely ditch cable and go the NetFlix-only route quite some time ago. We haven’t seen a cable show that’s not on DVD since at least 2 years ago, and it was a huge improvement in our lives.
But now we decided to take it a step further. We discovered that TV seems to suck the life force out of us - we were often rather tired after watching a movie, while being able to do things till late in the night if we didn’t. We played around with this for a while and found it to be a fairly consistent result - and we really didn’t feel like we were missing that much.
Add to that the fact that we both have about a 300-movie backlog on NetFlix (each!), and there’s no way we will ever catch up on that.
So a decision was made: We are not going to watch any TV or DVD in the next 30 days. (The idea is based on Steve Pavlina’s “30-Day Trial”
We started in earnest this Monday, and so far things are mostly exactly as we expected them to be - more time together in the evenings where we can actually talk, more things on our “I’d like to…” list we actually get to. Downsides so far? None for me - Petra is missing the background chatter of TV a little bit when doing boring chores. But audio books have been a good substitute for her.
I’ll post a summary of our experiences once the 30 days are over. So far, I’m liking it!
I do agree with you that TV quality these days are abysmal. I haven’t serious watch television since 2000. Coincidentally, I am doing the opposite of your 30-days plan. I am trying to watch at least an hour or two of TV at night…just to absorb some pop culture back into my life. Do you plan to return to TV after your 30-days trial? T.T.
I can so relate - my SO and I also gave up cable about 7 years ago now, and we don’t miss it. We get essentially 4 channels over the air here and that’s plenty. Plus we also do the Netflix-type thing (Zip.ca here). Sounds like we had the same thought process.
I don’t know how the 30d trial would go. I’d miss TV news I think (FYI I’m in Canada, the news approach is not quite the CNN feeding frenzy thing, so it’s a bit more watchable). Perhaps a modified 30d trial only watching news.
Or perhaps only scheduled watching - ie, shows that are grabbed on DVD recorder, e.g. DailyShow, and maybe Dr. Who.