# Who Watches TV?



## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

I install television satellite systems for one of the major providers in the U.S. The customers for whom I install often comment on the strangeness of the fact that I don't subscribe to any television services; especially in light of the fact that my employer offers it for free. I can understand why they think it to be strange.

The reason I don't allow it in my home has to do with several factors. The biggest reason is, and this is what I often tell people, "I am afraid I will get sucked into watching it more than I should." I do enjoy watching things on a screen, but I fear to be a big distraction to godly living and devotion. There only seems to be one thing the businesses on TV want to do, and that is sell us something we may often not need. Overall, I find the freedom from this kind of media to be refreshing and adds depth to my life that I could not get any other way.

Sometimes I will go to the library and check out a video. There are a few Red Boxes around my home where I will rent about a movie a week, if there is anything I would like to watch.

I got used to not watching TV when I was truck driver. My wife got used to not watching TV when she was in college. When we got married, we decided to buy a TV, but refrained from purchasing a TV service. It's so expensive!

There are times when we would like to have something more accessible and instant to watch, but we are mostly happy without the constant buzz in our home.

What are the viewing habits of the fellows on the board? Is there any related thing someone would like to share about there viewing habits?


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## ZackF (Oct 31, 2013)

sevenzedek said:


> I install television satellite systems for one of the major providers in the U.S. The customers for whom I install often comment on the strangeness of the fact that I don't subscribe to any television services; especially in light of the fact that my employer offers it for free. I can understand why they think it to be strange.
> 
> The reason I don't allow it in my home has to do with several factors. The biggest reason is, and this is what I often tell people, "I am afraid I will get sucked into watching it more than I should." I do enjoy watching things on a screen, but I fear to be a big distraction to godly living and devotion. There only seems to be one thing the businesses on TV want to do, and that is sell us something we may often not need. Overall, I find the freedom from this kind of media to be refreshing and adds depth to my life that I could not get any other way.
> 
> ...



We watch tv and have only one tv set proper in our house but of course computers and even cell phones really count nowadays too. Prolly watch more than we should...but less than we used too. Sounds like alkies in denial doesn't it? However at our rate of decrease who knows where we will be in five years. I like Sci/Fi, history and some drama. Mrs F. like mainly drama but I've drawn her into stuff like BSG and Star Trek. We have recently set a rule of no eating in the living room and that has made a lot of things better. Family worship is now much more routine straight after dinner. My advice for anyone is just contain your family's viewing time overall in time as much as program content. TV is one of the smaller things to fit in the jar. Put the big rocks in the jar first and with discernment put little rocks of tv watching after. There are no hardcoded "rules" I would dare seek to impose other than don't watch it all of time nor watch p0rn in it's sexual or violent categories.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Oct 31, 2013)

I'm similar to you, Jon. We don't have one as it lets in darkness and depravity which is unwelcome here. Upon a rare occasion I will get a DVD to watch on my computer, but I don't have much interest in the "Babylonian arts" anymore. I may also rarely watch a TV premiere (on Hulu or elsewhere) to see what is going on culturally, but that's it. I will also watch some trailers on Apple iTunes.

I don't like my mind filled with images that are false representations of life (though I do like LOTR, and an occasional significant movie, such as _I Am Legend_), as I am an artist (poet and writer) creating my own non-fiction spiritual adventure genre work.

Nonetheless, I would not make a "law" about it for other Christians, as there are some who may use it in a godly manner and with a good conscience before the Lord.


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## JML (Oct 31, 2013)

No cable or satellite here. We have a TV that we use solely for DVDs. My wife and I occasionally watch some shows from the Food Network online. There is nothing inherently wrong with watching TV. It can be abused obviously, especially in regards to time. We don't have it due to sinful commercials and getting stuck with the immoral channels along with the good. If it were possible to only get the channels you wanted, I would consider it.


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## JoannaV (Oct 31, 2013)

I guess I do find it weird you don't avail yourself of free satellite :B But then again, I don't know what channels that would include or how many wouldn't have commercials...so maybe it makes a lot of sense after all! Actually I guess pretty much every channel has commercials nowadays 

I grew up with no TV. My husband grew up in a family who watched more, they tend to watch mostly movies and westerns nowadays though. So we have a tv, but only over-the-air service.

Sometimes our toddler turns on the tv, he only watches briefly when he does this, so the channel I generally have it tuned to is the PBS create channel, which is cooking shows, DIY, gardening, etc. 99% innocuous 

Unfortunately, the tv is such an easy thing to turn to when tired or energy-less. I want a new flat-screen so we can hide it better haha.


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## JBaldwin (Oct 31, 2013)

One of the best things that happened to us was to move to a 3rd world country where TV is a luxury. We opted not to hook one up when we moved here and frequent the local library instead of watching TV. Has been a great change for all of us.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

Jerusalem Blade said:


> ... Nonetheless, I would not make a "law" about it for other Christians...



This is something of which I always need to be mindful. There are a handful of differences between the practices and beliefs we hold and those of others around us, and I sometimes find the conversation of my heart edging toward a superiority complex that I must deny. I guard against it. For instance, our observance of the Lord's Day seems to be stricter in our home than that of our extended family, friends, and fellow church members. Learning to judge righteously with grace has been a challenge. Regarding the subject at hand, the same holds true. There is definitely a tendency, for those young and careful in the faith, to make laws out of matters of conscience.


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## Elizabeth (Oct 31, 2013)

We don't do any network/commercial/satellite/cable TV. It always astonishes me to be around it, either at family member's homes, or while sitting in a waiting room of any sort. I have a real low tolerance for it, and if no one is around watching it I see if I can turn it off. It's so loud and garish.

My main DVD pleasure, when I want to sit and watch something, is always one episode of "All Creatures Great and Small". I can't sit and watch the box for hours. If there is a movie I want to see(rare), I always take it in doses.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Oct 31, 2013)

We also do not have cable/satellite for many of the reasons noted above, primarily the commercials. The light really came on for me when I was watching Disney Junior with my daughter and an ad for Cialis came on and was followed by a dating service commercial. With Netflix/Amazon Prime I can watch what I want and also monitor with much more clarity what my kids are imbibing in my home.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

JoannaV said:


> ... I don't know what channels that would include or how many wouldn't have commercials...



I could get all channels except for the premium channels.

The fact of the matter is that I would have the free TV my employer offers me if I had more confidence in my ability to watch it frugally. When we had a home Internet subscription (now we just have the Internet on our iPhones), we had a subscription to Netflix. When I discovered the show entitled "Lost," I watched it too much in order to discover the constant plot developments. It didn't take me long to get through six seasons. Another show entitled "Heroes" was another one that sparked my interest on Netflix. I watched all of those episodes too. Twice.


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## JimmyH (Oct 31, 2013)

The condo association dues I pay include basic cable but I do not have it hooked up. I haven't turned the set on in a couple of years. As Steve pointed out above, I don't want to allow the 'darkness and depravity' in. I spent so many years wasting my time on 'things of the world' watching that rotten box when I could have, maybe should have, been devoting that time to reading the Bible and expositions of same. I have a collection of DVDs. All old movies from silents on through the years to the talkies. Many classics and every now and again I get the urge to take time out to watch one or another but I haven't even done that in a couple of years.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> ... With Netflix/Amazon Prime I can watch what I want and also monitor with much more clarity what my kids are imbibing in my home.



If I ever found it in my heart to really pay for a TV service in the future, I would not pay for one at all. Rather, for the price I might pay for a subscription, I think I would go out and purchase the shows I would like to watch. Again, if I ever found it in my heart... After having no instant TV service for years, I would find it very difficult to pay what providers are charging. But for the money they charge, most of the shows they offer could be owned instead.


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## ZackF (Oct 31, 2013)

sevenzedek said:


> JoannaV said:
> 
> 
> > ... I don't know what channels that would include or how many wouldn't have commercials...
> ...



I gave up computer/console gaming over a decade ago for the same reasons. I went to work twice in the same week after pulling an all-nighter gaming. I've never encountered that problem with tv shows though there have been stretches I am not proud of.


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## Logan (Oct 31, 2013)

I've been TV free almost all of my life and my wife has too so it's not been too hard to continue that in our own household.

Saves money (lots of it) and there's nothing I'd really want to watch anyway. We do watch a movie perhaps once a month but we also play games together sometimes, some of the Lego games have excellent two-player fun 

But lately we've just been laying in bed together for an hour or so before we sleep and reading. Curiously enough, Elizabeth, I've been reading "All Creatures Great and Small" most recently!


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

KS_Presby said:


> sevenzedek said:
> 
> 
> > JoannaV said:
> ...



I used to play first-person-shooters on the PC before Christ. A few years ago, I decided to try it again with "Call of Duty" because a group of my fellow church members had network parties and I wanted to join. One night, my wife came in when I was blowing a guy's head off. The blood was graphic. She started crying and told me that it reminded her of the soldiers she knew in our military—what they might have to do one day or what they might have had to do in the past. I was stopped in my tracks by her sensitivity and my lack thereof. I found I couldn't play anymore. That night, I plopped that disc in the microwave and never looked back. That night taught me something about the condition of my heart. Likewise, I really think TV can have a desensitizing effect on its viewers.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

Logan said:


> I've been TV free almost all of my life and my wife has too so it's not been too hard to continue that in our own household...



We're quite excited to have our little-man Ashby grow up without TV.

I believe this one thing has enriched our lives greatly. We seem to have more time for family and humanities. No doubt, we spend more time reading, more time building relationships, and more time developing personal interests that seem to make life more interesting. For us, not having TV is like taking control of our lives; even our thought lives. Besides, I don't know how I would get anything done if I had to watch TV all day. I work approximately fifty-five hours a week as it is now.


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## irresistible_grace (Oct 31, 2013)

Four hours ago we purchased our first TV as a married couple (its been almost 10 years). All 19 inches!!!

The only reason we bought it was because our [soon to be] 2 year old is constantly messing with the keyboard while we're watching DVDs on the computer & last night whatever he pushed almost cost us our computer...

As far as DVDs go, we only own/watch the The Scottish Covenanters documentary, William Tyndall cartoon by Torch Lighters, Signing the Psalms, the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, the first movie in the HOBBIT trilogy (so far) & the LOVE COMES SOFTLY Series. 

We occasionally check-out FREE educational movies from the library but its been a while. 

We do not do "TV" as in cable or satellite (we did not even contemplate getting one of those digital converter boxes because we are staunchly opposed to "TV") ... 

If it weren't for THE SCARE last night, we would still be watching DVDs on our computer & we would NOT own a TV!


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## Wayne (Oct 31, 2013)

JimmyH said:


> I spent so many years wasting my time on 'things of the world' watching that rotten box when I could have, maybe should have, been devoting that time to reading the Bible and expositions of same.



Quote by Samuel Rutherford, from Jerrold's thread:

"Strive to make prayer and reading and study your delight. Seek good companionship; avoid late hours; be wise in your affections. Keep faith and truth with all men in bargains and covenants; fail not to give due respect to women; honor your parents; forget not the poor and needy. Young men, I would that there were such hearts in you as to fear God and give your souls and bodies wholly to His service. O what a sweet couple, what a glorious yoke are youth and grace, Christ and a young man!."


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

irresistible_grace said:


> ... the LOVE COMES SOFTLY series...



We have all of them. My wife, Meaghan, teases me because I always cry when we watch them. Me? I'm a sci-fi kind of guy and, somehow, this series has captured my heart. She even bought the rest the series for my birthday; those we didn't yet own.


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## VictorBravo (Oct 31, 2013)

I quit watching TV in 1975. Back then, there was only one station, beamed in from a microwave tower on a mountain 50 miles away. Cable was something some cities were getting.

These days, I don't know where I'd get the time to watch TV (or movies for that matter). Too many other things going on in the past 38 years.

At the time, I was a pagan, but the reason I quit watching TV can be traced to three things: 

1. Gunsmoke went off the air, 

2. I was teaching myself piano and spent all my spare time (which wasn't a lot) practicing, and 

3. one crisp 40-below winter night I was coming in from checking the cows and paused to see a spectacular Northern Lights show. The electric ripples were cascading from the north clear to the south. It almost seemed I could hear them.

Then I looked into the window at my family staring dazedly at the glowing box featuring some comedy show. I walked in and mentioned the Northern Light show. Dad, to his credit, sprung up and went outside to see it. The rest of my family wanted to wait until a commercial. By then, the show died down some and everyone went back to the TV, except I stayed outside pondering things in my heart for a long time. I decided I would not allow such a squawking mesmerizing device take me from seeing the magnificent world, even for an instant.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

Wayne said:


> JimmyH said:
> 
> 
> > ... "Strive to make prayer and reading and study your delight...
> ...


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

VictorBravo said:


> I quit watching TV in 1975. Back then, there was only one station, beamed in from a microwave tower on a mountain 50 miles away. Cable was something some cities were getting.
> 
> These days, I don't know where I'd get the time to watch TV (or movies for that matter). Too many other things going on in the past 38 years.
> 
> ...



How poetic. I will really enjoy meeting you one day!


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## irresistible_grace (Oct 31, 2013)

sevenzedek said:


> irresistible_grace said:
> 
> 
> > ... the LOVE COMES SOFTLY series...
> ...



LOVE COMES SOFTLY makes my "tough guy" of a hubby cry too! 
That's what we were watching last night when Levi tried to reprogram our computer...


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## ZackF (Oct 31, 2013)

From this thread I had to know what "Love Comes Softly" was and so I asked Mrs F. From the posts above I now see it as a challenge to get through it. She is putting it in the Netflix queue. For what it's worth, I thought BSG had some real tough tear jerker scenes.


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## Jack K (Oct 31, 2013)

I watch sports on TV but little else. For years I worked for TV stations, doing news, but these days I'm not even interested in TV news anymore. I do like a good movie now and then.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

irresistible_grace said:


> sevenzedek said:
> 
> 
> > irresistible_grace said:
> ...



Our dog's name is Levi. He reprogrammed our cat who now thinks he's a dog too.


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## sevenzedek (Oct 31, 2013)

Jack K said:


> I watch sports on TV but little else. For years I worked for TV stations, doing news, but these days I'm not even interested in TV news anymore. I do like a good movie now and then.



What is TV news? Is that where they sit at a desk and talk about all the bad things that happen in the world and laugh at each other's jokes?


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## JimmyH (Oct 31, 2013)

sevenzedek said:


> Jack K said:
> 
> 
> > I watch sports on TV but little else. For years I worked for TV stations, doing news, but these days I'm not even interested in TV news anymore. I do like a good movie now and then.
> ...


TV news, in bygone days, was Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley & David Brinkley reporting on the events of the day. Eric Sevareid would opine on the meaning of some of them. Now it is a coed affair with a man and a women 'anchor' together, each in turn parroting a sentence or two from the teleprompter.


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## JoannaV (Nov 1, 2013)

"World" news: In America blah blah, cute cat, blah blah, oh Bono was in Italy.
Local news: someone got shot, fire, cat, car crash video from another state, weird thing that happened in another state, sports, vaguely investigative piece on local corruption, kind of insightful commentary on something from one guy who _is_ pretty interesting but I'm kind of tired of having to sit through the rest of it... ALSO, they have commercials for the news...find out what happened when this man broke in to the store! Tune in at 5! Then at 5, at every commercial break, "stay tuned to find out what happened when man broke into store"...finally...the news story: this man broke into the store. Oh.

As someone who grew up without tv, I always found it hard to regulate my viewing when I did have access to a television. SuchALotOfThingsToSee!! O.O Countdown, Watercolour Challenge, Working Lunch, Teletubbies, 15-to-1, so many things! But then, after the initial glut, most programmes lose their appeal. Most of the time I actually don't like movies or serial storylines because I have no interest in being invested for that much time. I grew up reading not watching, and well I am not skilled at watching  I don't remember character names. When reading I recognise them by the shape of the name on the page. I sometimes have trouble following the story in film because I did not grow up understanding how that media works. As a child I assumed movies were the book filmed. Exact dialogue and so on. I can't accept the leaps in logic and holes in the story!

I like geeky shows, and educational shows, and shows that present a confusing situation and find the solution, and shows that connect me to my home country. Well I am less interested in sci-fi/science-related and crime/detective shows than I used to be; I think perhaps partly because I used to be kind of interested in some kind of career somehow related to those things, and now I am not 

It is bad how quickly one gets desensitized to things. You can be disgusted by something, then a couple of accidental exposures and suddenly the show is just funny. Re-sensitization can happen quickly too  But not _quite_ as quickly


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## Shawn Mathis (Nov 1, 2013)

I grew up without a tv in the 80s. I did not own one until about 1997. Accordingly tv commercials really bug me as do "news" shows. We own an over-the-air tv that we use to watch some new shows or some old ones (Hitchcock Hour--there are 4 over-the-air stations that play really old shows now). I highly recommend families and Sunday schools to read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death if you want to subtly (!) encourage less tv watching


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## Free Christian (Nov 1, 2013)

Where I live we used to have only 5 channels for years and just in the last few years we have got more. I don't know but off the top of my head we now have 15. But for all the extra ones the programming has got worse. There used to be better programs on the 5 than there now is on 15 of them. Reality (anything but reality, notice how no-one looks at the cameras in a room full of non expecting to see cameras people, what a joke)
I used to like to watch a good program but they are getting fewer and fewer these days. And the doco's these days im sick of, "this creature has been around for 20 million years, this valley was carved out over 15 million years, this lizard is the culmination of millions of years of evolution, blah blah blah...
I call TV, even though I selectively do watch things and turn over or off when they mock God or show graphic violence and other sick things, I call it "Satans Classroom".


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## jambo (Nov 1, 2013)

Similarly to Jon I work for Virgin Media which recently amalgamated with Liberty Global. We have free TV and I would watch the likes of football, love westerns and old black and white movies. We don't watch a lot and now with on-demand and 
recordable set top boxes you can record and watch when it is convenient. Thus you can get on with other things and watch when it suits.


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## Jack K (Nov 1, 2013)

sevenzedek said:


> Jack K said:
> 
> 
> > I watch sports on TV but little else. For years I worked for TV stations, doing news, but these days I'm not even interested in TV news anymore. I do like a good movie now and then.
> ...



TV can be an excellent medium for communicating important news immediately and with visual impact. It also makes a great storytelling medium for thoughtful news stories. Sadly, it turns out that TV news is most profitable when when a small staff fills hours of programming by chattering on about little that has any depth, and the majority of TV news in this country has turned in that direction. I miss what I used to do.


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## Logan (Nov 1, 2013)

I think I'd consider the news stations more reliable if they would say every once in a while "nothing really to report, good night folks." Instead it's incredibly dramatized news ("Super Storm Sandy!", "Newtown Shooting!") around the clock.


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## Frosty (Nov 1, 2013)

We have a TV, but no cable. The very few TV shows I care to watch I watch on Netflix for $8/month.

The only thing that hurts me is missing out on sports, but I can listen to my teams on the radio if need-be so it's not that big of a deal.

Honestly if cable wasn't so expensive I'd have it. Just can't justifying paying for it when the only things I'd watch would be 2 or 3 TV shows and an occasional game.


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## THE W (Nov 1, 2013)

Grew up with TV. Couldn't live without it. If someone was gonna take away my TV and my videogames they may as well have taken away the oxygen i breathed.

Videogames destroyed me. It was normal for me to play videogames all day non-stop. My childhood was videogames all the time. I didnt play with the other kids. I didnt want to go over a kids house that didn't have videogames and when i went over a kids house i would find his videogames and play them as if i were at home. I wouldn't interact with the kid at all unless the game i was playing was 2 player.

My parents didn't do the best job of monitoring my viewing. was exposed to p0rn when i was 3 and had numerous accidental run-ins with such material from that point in time. By the time i was 12 up until i was 30 my life consisted of TV, videogames, Wu-tang, and p0rn.

After being saved for a year and a half all 4 of these things are out of my life. Don't watch TV..at all. I have no use for it and see it now as an absurd waste of time. 

I have videogames that are brand new and are unopened that i have not played and probably will never play. i had spent some $500 on video games a couple years ago and bought two systems and a bunch of games. I went through a handful of them and then i just stopped playing. I was just no longer interested and my consoles just sat there collecting dust until i eventually unhooked them from my TV and put them in a suitcase. 

I was for a while really into watching fighting game community tournaments on youtube but i have recently stopped this as well. I've also recently eliminated sports viewing but not totally. I'm down to only watching if one of my teams is in a championship game(besides the superbowl for obvious reasons). I currently have a 19" flatscreen that doubles as a computer monitor. At this point, it may as well just be a computer monitor. 

wouldn't bind anyone on the issue, i just see it, again, as a gross waste of time. there's way better, more productive things to be doing other than watching TV.


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## Quatchu (Nov 1, 2013)

We have a TV but no cable or satellite, just because of price. We have Netflix as well, nowadays allot of TV channels post there shows online the day after they have aired for free. There are a couple of shows we watch regularly this way.


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## Tripel (Nov 1, 2013)

I watch some TV. I'm thankful for DVR and Netflix so I can watch the things that really interest me during the times when I choose to sit down and relax that way. And I don't have to deal with commercials. 

Sometimes a beer and a quality TV show make for a good ending to the day.


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## sevenzedek (Nov 1, 2013)

I am happy to see a growing trend in these threads. I have been to other online Christian forums and I believe the people at the Puritan Board have their heads screwed on straight. That is not to say that we are all perfect and nobody else is. It is just a good thing to be among those whom I view to think and behave in a godly manner.


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## Somerset (Nov 1, 2013)

We do not have a TV. We prefer the radio, music and reading in our free time, which is limited. 

In the UK you have to have a licence to watch live TV. There are three groups of people over here - those who have a licence, those who watch TV without a licence and those who do not need a licence because they do not have a TV. However, the TV licence authority are very reluctant to accept that this third group actually exist. About once a year we get a nasty letter telling me I have to telephone them to explian why I do not have a licence. This year I could not be bothered to tell them yet again, so I have now had a letter telling me they will be taking me to court. I doubt if it will actually come to anything - apart from having a detector van outside the house.

Does anyone know if detector vans actually work, or is it just a scare tactic. If we do have a van outside, we will offer them tea and bore them with updates about the Archers, a long running radio drama.


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## py3ak (Nov 1, 2013)

Jerusalem Blade said:


> I don't like my mind filled with images that are false representations of life (though I do like LOTR, and an occasional significant movie, such as _I Am Legend_), as I am an artist (poet and writer) creating my own non-fiction spiritual adventure genre work.



Mr. Rafalsky, if you haven't seen any of them yet, I think you might find the films of Zhang Yimou to be well-deserving of the _significant_ epithet. Not all Chinese epics are equally successful, but his are at the top of that heap. I also have to acknowledge the magnificent _Musa the Warrior_ for demonstrating that the themes and approach of _Waldere_ are still moving.


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## Scottish Lass (Nov 1, 2013)

We have a small flatscreen upstairs and a old one downstairs. Both get used mostly for live sporting events. Tim and I both use Netflix, and I use Hulu. To aid with Grace's feeding, we use Netflix and Amazon Prime. 

For me, it's less about the cost (though that's a factor), but the fact that I want to watch on my own schedule. Even live PBS doesn't work for G's feeding; we need to be able to pause it frequently.


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## jwithnell (Nov 1, 2013)

We watch some Netflix and Amazon Prime on our computers. We haven't had a TV or cable for quite a while. I have been thinking lately about the "escape" I obviously seek when I tune it for an old TV show or movie. It's really hard to know if it is a harmless way to bust stress after being with a special needs child all day, or an escape from what God has, in his sovereignty, brought into my life.


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## ZackF (Nov 1, 2013)

I'll offer a personal case study that doesn't address the issue in a binary way on whether to watch or not to watch but rather in being mindful of what you do watch. I suppose this example can be applied to novels and plays too. More and more I find myself avoiding tv shows and movies that use cynicism as the overall driving force in character behavior. Several years ago I listened to Jerram Barrs lecture on the perils of allowing cyncism to run amuck in your intake of humor, music and various other media. I just kind of said "hmm" and forgot about it. The past couple of years I've remembered the talk. House MD was an example of a cynically drenched show. In varying degrees all of the characters were cynics. The show was without hope most all of the time. If even a guest character, usually a patient or relative of the patient, demonstrated hope for anything in this world or the next the character was booed off the set. I find a similar bleak hopelessness in much of Cormac McCarthy's stuff. A steady diet of this is worse than the obviously nihilistic garbage out there in the music and cinema, specifically represented in violent 1970s/80s exploitation films. Give me a splatter zombie flick any day over "realistic" dreary cynicism because at least after the hoards of zombies are all gunned down a remnant of struggling survivors willing to live remain. Just because it isn't p0rn nor violent doesn't mean a show, novel or play isn't taking you down.


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## VictorBravo (Nov 1, 2013)

KS_Presby said:


> Just because it isn't p0rn nor violent doesn't mean a show, novel or play isn't taking you down.



Thanks, Zack. A very good point.


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## Sherwin L. (Nov 1, 2013)

Sure do. Watch TBN everyday!


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## jambo (Nov 1, 2013)

Somerset said:


> We do not have a TV. We prefer the radio, music and reading in our free time, which is limited.
> 
> In the UK you have to have a licence to watch live TV. There are three groups of people over here - those who have a licence, those who watch TV without a licence and those who do not need a licence because they do not have a TV. However, the TV licence authority are very reluctant to accept that this third group actually exist. About once a year we get a nasty letter telling me I have to telephone them to explian why I do not have a licence. This year I could not be bothered to tell them yet again, so I have now had a letter telling me they will be taking me to court. I doubt if it will actually come to anything - apart from having a detector van outside the house.
> 
> Does anyone know if detector vans actually work, or is it just a scare tactic. If we do have a van outside, we will offer them tea and bore them with updates about the Archers, a long running radio drama.



I had a friend who was in this position. He instructed his solicitor to write to the licensing authorities and that was the end of the matter.


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## Free Christian (Nov 1, 2013)

News shows and the reporters crack me up. These guys, some of them, have been reporting for years but still get it so wrong its laughable. 
Saw one where a guy was holed up in a house with a handgun. The reports says "the police are very concerned and want to create a large perimeter as the gunman has a handgun which is lethal up to 3 kilometres!" Another where the reporter said that a shotgun was very dangerous as it had a killing range of over 1 kilometre. Another where guys were shooting pigs with shotguns and he said "these men are culling these pigs with high powered assault style rifles".
Another where a bulldozer was pushing over a house "the man used a tractor to demolish the home". Or, "the man was circled by the shark just meters away and our helicopter was there to capture the drama" yet the chopper showed the guy in the water and the shark no-where in sight. Or you hear of some terrible thing like Christian's being killed over seas or some other horrid thing like African refuges being slaughtered whilst trying to get food but it does not get air time, instead it will be what Beyoncé said or what Miley Cyrus has done.


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## JoannaV (Nov 1, 2013)

Somerset said:


> We do not have a TV. We prefer the radio, music and reading in our free time, which is limited.
> 
> In the UK you have to have a licence to watch live TV. There are three groups of people over here - those who have a licence, those who watch TV without a licence and those who do not need a licence because they do not have a TV. However, the TV licence authority are very reluctant to accept that this third group actually exist. About once a year we get a nasty letter telling me I have to telephone them to explian why I do not have a licence. This year I could not be bothered to tell them yet again, so I have now had a letter telling me they will be taking me to court. I doubt if it will actually come to anything - apart from having a detector van outside the house.
> 
> Does anyone know if detector vans actually work, or is it just a scare tactic. If we do have a van outside, we will offer them tea and bore them with updates about the Archers, a long running radio drama.



I think they can detect something, but that's not scary if you're not receiving tv signals.
My thinking was that we did not have a tv, so we did not have to buy the licence. _Nor_ did we have to spend any of our time or money on telephone calls or posting a letter (written with my ink!). If they came to the door we would tell them we had no tv. Sometimes that meant they left us alone for several years, other times they returned the next year.

I grew up with The Archers  Plenty of scandal just in that one show! I've just realised my family hasn't mentioned it recently, and I'm sure I must have phoned around 7pm a few times...huh guess they finally got bored of it too! I did see someone on facebook mention something about a dramatic storyline recently?


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## Logan (Nov 1, 2013)

Somerset said:


> Does anyone know if detector vans actually work, or is it just a scare tactic.



If your television stations are broadcast over the air, there is no way to detect who is receiving them via the EM signal, they just radiate and are absorbed by various objects including antennae. It's like talking in a large room and trying to detect which people are actually listening to the conversation vs which ones your voice just "bounces off" without them actually paying attention.

On the other hand, I suppose it is possible that the detection vans could have some sort of _sound_ detection equipment (laser detecting vibrations off of glass windows interpreted as sound) and if they could correlate the sounds coming from your house to a particular TV show that was being broadcast at that moment... but that would be pretty creepy!


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## ZackF (Nov 1, 2013)

Logan said:


> Somerset said:
> 
> 
> > Does anyone know if detector vans actually work, or is it just a scare tactic.
> ...



Do TVs give off a particular EM signature?


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## Logan (Nov 1, 2013)

KS_Presby said:


> Do TVs give off a particular EM signature?



In the form of light 

I suppose there's always a possibility there's something I'm unaware of but I work in radar. I can't think of any way they'd be able to detect what station you're watching based on EM.


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## ZackF (Nov 1, 2013)

Logan said:


> KS_Presby said:
> 
> 
> > Do TVs give off a particular EM signature?
> ...




I thought in the UK that if a resident had a TV period... he had to pay for license. In that case they are just looking for a TVs being owned. So if inspectors see a TV through the window whether or not it was being fed by VCR or DVD player only you had better have your license or pay a nasty fine. At least I thought that is what my brother told me. He's lived there off and on for the past decade. Maybe I understood him wrong.


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## sevenzedek (Nov 1, 2013)

Sherwin L. said:


> Sure do. Watch TBN everyday!



You're fired.


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## sevenzedek (Nov 1, 2013)

TV police? Wow! Who would think that was a good idea? That would be like requiring one to have a book license.


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## VictorBravo (Nov 1, 2013)

sevenzedek said:


> That would be like requiring one to have a book license.



Well, if the government were providing the books, the analogy would hold up better.

The license is essentially a user tax or fee to pay for public broadcasting.


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## sevenzedek (Nov 1, 2013)

VictorBravo said:


> sevenzedek said:
> 
> 
> > That would be like requiring one to have a book license.
> ...



That makes much more sense.


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## JoannaV (Nov 2, 2013)

If you have a TV receiver (whether in a TV or a computer or something else) you need a licence. Unless you can prove the receiver is disabled or never used. Some people do just use them to watch videos. Or theoretically if you can somehow do something to it such that it won't receive the BBC channels, just other channels, maybe. I can't remember now if you actually need to make sure it is disabled or if you can sometimes get away with just not using it, if you look like a trustworthy nice person.
Read this as to whether/how the detector vans work: How do TV detector vans work? Do they know what channel you''re watching, or just that you have the TV on? | Notes and Queries | guardian.co.uk 
Licence for black and white TVs are cheaper. If you are registered blind you get a free licence. Also, students can save a little bit of money given that they are rarely in their student house for a full year.


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## EKSB SDG (Nov 3, 2013)

We pulled the plug on television around the time that our first child was born. That was 23 years ago. Growing up, our children didn't even know what a 'commercial' was until one day when we walked past a bunch on tv sets in Sears and my oldest daughter asked was that was on the screen. Over the years, we've probably averaged about one rental a month. We also occasionally check out a movie from the library. The internet also provides some worthwhile finds.

While I can't imagine ever getting tethered to it again, I am looking forward to getting a large LED flat screen in the not too distant future.


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