I was reading an online discussion about a rumored video recorder from Apple when I came across a very interesting reply to a comment:

“Something friends with PVRs have told me is they ended up watching a lot less TV once they started using one .”

“That is *definitely* not the case in my house. Truth be told, we probably watch about the same amount of TV we always did, if not more, and we watch for the same reason we always did - it’s ‘down time’. We’re relaxing in the living room after dinner and want a couple of hours of mindless entrainment before bedtime.”

As I read this I was really struck by the sentence, “it’s ‘down time’. We’re relaxing in the living room after dinner and want a couple of hours of mindless entrainment before bedtime.”

After having a digital video recorder for the better part of 6 months now I would have to say I agree; my wife and I don’t watch less TV, we just spend more time watching TV we normally wouldn’t be able to see due to our schedules.

But what really struck me is the “mindless entertainment” part of the comment. The author is correct, 90% of the TV we watch is totally mindless. It’s so seldom that we turn off the TV, look at each other and say, “Gee, we really learned something new!”

It’s just what we do after dinner. And by “we” I mean the collective “we”. The behavior of sitting on the couch after dinner and watching TV is the modus operandi of almost every friend, family member, colleague and co-worker I have.

It’s the default behaviour of a lot of people in America today.

Just last night I was on the couch reading a book while my wife had the television on. I found it increasingly difficult to keep my attention turned toward my book. The Pavlovian response of paying attention to a TV that’s on was working hard to get the better of me!

So what’s the answer? The knee-jerk easy answer is to simply turn off the TV. But is that really the best answer? There are still programs I find interesting, informative, and humorous. I don’t want to cut TV out of my life completely - and I think that’s true for most of us who are addicted (and we shouldn’t kid ourselves, it’s an addiction).

Just like alcohol, I think television is fine in moderation, but it’s easy to over-do and the ramifications of overindulgence are not as clear as with alcohol. For me the biggest is the loss of time to do what I want to do with my time. There are only a finite number of hours we’re on this earth, and we should consider the time we have precious, we shouldn’t be so quick to squander it on television.

I think that the answer is to be more aware of the television I do consume and to be much more aware of the time I give to watching television. I don’t know about you, but my “to do” list for life is longer than I probably have time for even if I completely cut out television. It doesn’t make any sense to give up more of the long-term goals I want to accomplish by spending the limited time I have in front of the “boob tube.”