Disconnected and loving it

Let me preface this by saying I am not 100% disconnected, but when it comes to television I am. This month my rabbit ears will become an ancient relic, destined for storage in the garage attic, or perhaps the local dump. The television will continue to collect dust, as it has been increasingly in the months past. It will retain its position in the corner because I still use it to view movies on DVD or VHS. But as for network or cable television, it is already defunct.

I read today a piece on NPR's All Tech Considered, entitled "Cutting the Coax: Living without Cable TV." Todd Mundt, the author, speaks to his decision to cut cable and live without it. Yet, what he describes is not living without television; he swaps one medium for several others. His post is full of references to television I have never, nor will probably ever watch.

I moved here three years ago. At the point before I moved I was a cable junky, especially on the weekends when I'd curl up on the couch and get sucked into HGTV, Lifetime, The Food Network, and many other channels. I can't count the number of hours I spent in front of the glowing box. When we got a DVR I thought I had died and gone to heaven! Just before moving to California I moved where I didn't have a DVR and couldn't imagine a life without it. But then I moved to a house where there was no cable at all. Interestingly, the only television show I missed and had issues with missing was "Grey's Anatomy." I have watched that show since the first episode and I admit I'm hooked. I worked my way around that initially by asking a friend of mine who does have a DVR to record it for me. For about a year and a half I would go to her house weekly--sometimes bi-monthly--to watch the show. Then sometime this year I discovered that I could watch current episodes on ABC.com, so my weekly trips to her house stopped. That's the only current show I watch. I do turn the television on for 15 minutes first thing in the morning to get the weather, but more often lately I find I don't even do that.

Here's the problem when you disconnect from television like this: pretty soon you can't stand to watch any of it. Last week, when I was in Nebraska, I turned the television on one day while at the hospital with my mom. I watched all of 10 minutes of it (more than 5 was commercial time) before I had to turn it off. It was simply because I could not stand the constant barrage of commercials. I know I've written about this before, so I won't repeat myself here. It's amazing how invasive commercials are.

So when I read Todd Mundt's experience, at first I was kind of excited to read how someone else has discovered that over time without television you don't want it any more, but I was disappointed to find that all he did was transfer one addiction for another. He claims he is still "getting information" through these different mediums, but I can attest that you can get information by other means. Yes, I'm still hooked up through the Internet (and I do pay the $10 extra a month for high speed cable internet), and I find that it provides me a window to the world of information that television cannot. Through other means I can make up my own mind about the quality of information that I'm presented, rather than believe the crap (or even just be persuaded by it) that's pushed in my face on television.

In this household the switch to digital television won't mean a thing. We don't use the TV now, there's no need for us to use it in the future either.