Question #209 Viewing Habits
How much TV do you watch every week, and how do you feel about your viewing habits?*
BONUS: What are you watching when you watch it?
*Watching shows after-the-fact on DVD doesn't count. I'm talking about actual broadcast/cable feed.
16 comments:
none. i caught a couple of episodes of kid nation at the beginning of the season.
only dvds for us please. thanks.
since I'm assuming downloaded shows fall into the category of DVDs...
zero.
I keep getting tempted to get an antenna but I'm really reading some great books these days and improving my terrible guitar playing to slightly-less-terrible guitar playing.
Claiming only DVD watching is a face-saving mechanism. I think that DVD's should count because you are still sitting in front of the same appliance. It's like counting how much toast you make but not counting the times you toasted bagels.
I watch very little TV cause I don't have cable or a television in my room. If I did I would watch the venture brothers, charlie rose, football games, the wire, all the cable news pundit shows, daily show, MTV Jams, BET comic view, Hell Date etc. Not having cable for me is like not having a loaded pistol in the house.
I watch maybe 2 hours a night on average when it isn't baseball season.
I feel good about it because I only watch shows that I really like and everything that I watch is on my TiVo so I am never missing a special event in real life because I 'have to watch my shows.'
This reminds me of when Jake would make big claims about not watching TV but would spend 3 or 4 hours on myspace.
The "watching TV on DVD doesn't count" rider is awesome also.
I am going to add my own rider that watching poirot, CSI, nor any sports count.
With the above rider, I watch, on average, zero hours per day.
I am one of those annoying people who grew up on a 4-hour-a-day regimen of television, then self-righteously forsook TV after college because it rots your brain and stuff.
I am also a big hypocrite because I will, as Joe cleverly points out as hypocrisy, spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet watching YouTubes of people getting hit in the groin, reading bullshit and melodramatic blogs written by arrogant hipsters with bad grammar, and looking for Breeders songs. (This is just as brain-rotting as taking in a few hours of "The Real Housewives of Orange County.")
Anyway, I watch about 3 hours of T.V. a week when the WGA is not on strike. I feel really good about that.
hahaha, Jake is trolling.
A) DVD's certainly count.
B) I watch maybe an hour a week, if that.
C) However, multiply time spent playing video games accordingly to make up the idle time.
Honestly, alot 10-15 hrs, I don't count, sometimes a lot less, just depends. And yes I feel bad about that. Sometimes I just put it on instead of music, I know lame but I like it. I like The office, 30 Rock, How I Met your Mother, Dirty Sexy Money, and lots of others.
I also like docs about architecture, art, animals, etc... so when I can find those I watch but mostly I get those from NetFlix along with more shows like Weeds and Entourage because we don't have HBO or Showtime.
Plus we just bought a flat screen from my co worker so I need to really make sure it works.
I need to get rid of cable...
PS. I spend minimal time at night on the internet and I usually am drawing/painting or doing other things while the TV is on does that count for anything, does this make me less of a TV whore?
i spend probably between two and four hours of drinking beer and pretending to be too cool to watch sports at various friends houses. i have cable at home but there is no TV plugged in. so i've got that going for me, which is nice.
the thing that i don't understand very well is how people use television to unwind, or turn off as i frequently hear it called. watching television (in particular but not limited to commercials) winds me up and makes me crazy. i'm also unable to fall asleep to television, which a lot of people can.
I almost always feel guilty when i watch TV, unless im watching Intervention or something really awful like the Bad Girls Club on Oxygen. That i will watch. But since there are plenty of days where im stuck at my desk for 12 hours without going outside, i cant really justify going home and staring at my TV. Doesn't mean i dont...
I probably watch about 1 hour of broadcasted tv live when lost is on.... occasionally i will watch such things when i am bored at other peoples houses and the like... so not much....
do watch lots of crap on computer sometimes...particularly when i have insomnia...
Oh, I watched Gladiators live broadcast at the pub this week. So change my zero to a one.
Uhm. A lot. I can't claim to be a cool kid and not like the tv.
But it is balanced out with tons of reading and grad school.
And since I can't count sports, Saturdays and Sundays Feb. through Nov. I don't watch any tv. so thats good.
Oh, except for Torchwood and Desperate Housewives. Yeah. A lot.
TLR: Don't worry about it. Since you watch shows on DVR and not on an "actual broadcast/cable feed," your viewing doesn't count either. My assumption is that the shows I watched about hot-rodding my (chimerical) F-150 also don't count because they were viewed on-demand.
I failed earlier to answer the question about guilt*.
The guilt I feel about watching TV** is on a sliding scale that gets adjusted based on what is going on in the rest of my life, and the company I am in when watching the TV.
I don't feel guilty at all, even if I watch TV for multiple hours in a day, if during the other hours I am productive. Like if I am using my brain a lot and stepping outside my comfort zone and working hard and learning stuff, mindless entertainment is exactly what I need and I don't feel bad about partaking in some.
It also depends on the company I am in. If I am watching TV with my gf it is time spent together and is beneficial to our relationship. Since this relationship is such a large part of my life anything that is good for it (even if that thing is watching animal planet shows) is good for me. Ditto for watching TV with friends
I do feel guilty if I am watching TV for hours and hours by myself in lieu of hanging out with my friends.
* Guilt BTW is the one prevailing influencer on my life. I think for most people it is either fear or guilt.
** By "Watching TV" I mean any sort of passive entertainment. This includes reading books or clicking around on the www.
I love TV! I'm not ashamed. If I am home my TV is on, even if I am not watching it. I need some sort of background noise at all times. I have a DVR so I'm usually watching old Cary Grant movies or tv shows I really like.
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