How Much TV Do You Watch??

Status
Not open for further replies.
Wow, it looks like all us supererogatory non-TV watchers were eager to let y'all know that we don't watch TV!:grin: Or maybe there really [i:48033f895a]are[/i:48033f895a] a lot of us who don't.
 
My watching TV is way down since getting off of cable. I was undecided between less than one hour a day and 1-3 hours a day. There are a few hour long programs I want to watch. So those days, with news, it is 1-3 hours a day. But then there are days the TV stays off.
 
I have one show that I watch during the week... Smallville. Other than that, I'll watch some college basketball when I can. That's about it, though.
 
I don't watch tv shows. Not for some ideological reason, but simply because I don't have the time... and the time I do have free coincides with very lame programming hours...
I do like to watch movies on dvd, however. I'd say I watch one 2 hour movie per week... except for when I pop in LOTR which takes a little longer. ;)
 
There is not much on TV that is worth watching. My wife and I like two programs that we occasionally watch late at night - Trading Spaces on Saturday night (home improvement) and Unwrapped (how they make candy, burgers, icecream, etc.). I have to admit, we watched the beginning rounds of American Idol. Not because we like secular music, but because it is the funniest thing I have ever seen and demosntrates the pitiable state of Amercian teens. I mean, these horrid, abismal singers get up in front of three judges to audition to be "THE" recording star, and most of them can't sing a note. My wife and I can't believe our ears. These people could not carry a tune in a suitcase, and they "think" they are the greatest singers in the world. This only lasts two weeks (6 episodes) of the "prequalification" auditions, which really is the heart of the fun. We rolled hysterically.

Other than that, we will rent a DVD once in a while, or we will buy those we think are the best (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Count of Monte Cristo (Great Movie), Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Equilibrium (Fantastic Movie), LOTR, etc. We have Curse Free TV so as to filter out bad language, which works quite well. Anyway, our "movie night" is usually Friday night or Saturday night, and the rest of the time is book reading and study.

I am in the midst of "thinking about" doing away with TV (not controlled DVDs) altogether. Many times, even during Trading Spaces, we see horrible commercials where we have to turn the station. And when we turn the station for that moment, we see something else we didn't need to see on that station! We are fed up with commercials. "MUTE" works very well, but we will may be using "OFF" more frequently.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love stories, and I am a sucker for a good flick.
 
Matthew asked:
How much TV do you watch?

I'm glad you didn't ask how much time we spend watching the computer screen. :rolleyes:

I'd say I usually watch TV for maybe 1 or 2 hours a day, sometimes a little more and sometimes not at all. I think I'd probably watch a little more if I got one of those blockers that Matthew (I think) said that he has - filters out the swears.

I like watching some of the shows (O'Rielly Factor, Hannity and Colms, or On the Record) on the Fox news channel sometimes. On weekends, I like to try and catch War Stories, hosted by Oliver North.

I usually watch sports towards the end of the seasons. During the regular season, I might catch a game here or there.

And, of course, there's Sponge Bob. My little one's really into him, so I'll sometimes sit and watch it with him.

Bob

[Edited on 1-22-2004 by blhowes]
 
I voted less than an hour per night.

I admit to having a weakness for Sponge Bob and his funky front teeth that I simply cannot overcome.

Crabbie pattie anyone?
 
I can't believe that I am the first one to admit it!

I fall into the temptation all too often to turn the t.v. on (which is for campus cable courses ONLY) and watch TBN. Sometimes I get a bit carried away, but it is quite fun to watch. I would say that I have spent about an hour the past few weeks watching it. My heart is humbled and I am forced to pray for them. Benny Hinn is coming to Phx. you know. I wondered what it would be like to get on stage with Him and spaz out. I. . . I. . . I had a brain tumor and it's . . . it's gone (sniff . . . sniff . . . sob). OH NO MY SPLEEN! IT'S IN MY SPLEEN! I would love to see their faces, especially Paul Crouch's.
O.K. so I do get carried away.

Knight
 
I watch more tv at work than at home. It usually involves the news, history channel, or discovery channel with a few movies now and then. I try to read too. Working night shift, there isn't much else to do while waiting for patients to show up.
 
Here's the problem I have with TV

First of all let me say that I love Seinfeld, and my 1-2 hrs/wk that I voted with exist simply in watching those re-runs. I've seen all the episodes 3-6 times, I'm sure! Those actors are comedic geniouses, especially George and Kramer.
But anyway, the way I see it, TV is about one thing: money. All shows exist simply to gather viewers for "market share." Market share is important only for one thing: advertising dollars. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, TV is "the world" at its strongest. It fuels our desires and lusts: the lusts for attractiveness and popularity, riches and glory, and for the infinite supply of products. I saw a car ad the other night that talked about its being "stylish!" Stylish??? Its a car, for goodness sake! We have brothers and sisters in other countries with NO cars, and sometimes NO food, and we're worried about whether OUR cars are STYLISH enough!!! TV is consumerism and the devils finest showcase. Even the sports: people get SOOOOO caught up in the sports teams and their players; most of these players care only about the money, and would go to ANY other team if the price was right. How can we, with NO affiliation to the teams whatsoever, be even more passionate about the team than the players and coaches themselves, who are just doing it for money, glory, or a host of other sinful reasons????
I just don't get it. Perhaps my undergarments are on too tight or something, but I won't subject you to much more of my rant!
Only this: TV almost ALWAYS serves to pull me away from God and distract me. It either discourages me (TBN), encites my selfishness and greed (HSN), inflames my passions (all the seductiveness), or callouses my senses and conscious (like getting joy out of seeing people betray and backstab each other ala "Surviver" and other reality shows ["Weakest Link" perhaps] and by bringing more and more profanity to the mainstream, including taking the Lord's name in vain (which we encourage with our viewership); decreases our sensitivity to violence and cruelty, and trivializes human suffering (we see 15 seconds of it on the news and then go to a silly commercial and forget all about it). I could go on and on and on...:flaming:
(could somebody please hand me my Prozac!)

Bottom line: I would never judge anyone for watching a lot of the programming on TV that is good and wholesome, but let us all beware and take caution that we don't begin to call "good" what God considers "evil." When we watch much of these shows, we take part of what we see with us. "Bad associations corrupts good habits," I should know, I'm one of the casualties. Even my own precious "Seinfeld" has caused me to not love God and His people as I should. It makes me trivialize so much because that's what I see those characters do, like a flippant, "That's a shame" instead of genuine sympathy. Its made me more sarcastic (because I have their sarcastic lines programmed into my head, so they come out when a similar situation arises), and made me less loving toward my fellow man. I'm for the worse for all the TV I've watched, not the better.
(Now please be easy on the backlash against me! I'm very sensitive, you know.):no:
 
To TV or not to TV

I suggest everyone here read the book Amusing Ourselves to Death. It's a classic work on visual entertainment. The church I am a member of has as one of its stipulations that you will not own a television. While this is an unbiblical binding of the conscience, it does have a good intention - stay clear from all temptation!
 
[b:19b3c3d268]alwaysreforming,[/b:19b3c3d268]
Good post. I'm finding that I watch less and less TV these day for the reasons you mentioned. It irritates me to get into a good movie, only to have them ruin it by using the God's name in vain or using Jesus name with such lack of respect...all things are lawful, but not all things edify.

I enjoy watching Seinfeld once in a while. Sometimes the situations in the show force me to flip the channel, but quite often they have the funniest stuff about some of the most ordinary situations - like when George got all upset because somebody was "double-dipping" the potato chips. I'd say that, out of the three main characters, George is my favorite.

[b:19b3c3d268]Randall,[/b:19b3c3d268]
Out of curiousity, what denomination is the church that you attend? I know there's no way it could be a baptist church, right?

[Edited on 1-23-2004 by blhowes]
 
Re: Church

I am a member of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Joel Beeke is the pastor.
 
I voted less than 1 hour a day....I figure it averages out to that. I grew up without a TV at home. We now have a state of the art home theater/audio system, which we use mostly for movies and music listening. With that said the only time I regularly watch TV is a couple times a week when I'm on the treadmill for an hour, usually Animal Planet programing, Early Edition, or JAG. I also watch "Doc", a dopey Pax tv program staring Billy Ray Cyrus, but I like it anyway.
 
The Evening News is an hour long, and I watch that most days. Plus if there is a decent movie on I'll watch that.
 
To be honest i feel very conficted and hypocrite with my TV. Deep in my heart i hate my TV, because it brings the world, the language and lust inside my house. How many times is it that you are getting excitting by watching a movie,and during the movie there is a few times some gossips! There are still memories in my mind of 15 years ago , which where sinfull, and which are coming once in the while back in my mind. I always pray with my wife in our morning devotion that God migh santifty us, and that our house might be a house of prayer, but that is in my eyes so hyprocrite, becaus iam praying , and after some time iam watching a movie where the world with het lust comes into my house.

Yes, the TV takens me wawy from GOD. The TV is the medium where the darknes, comes in.

My wife and me are considering to put our TV out of the house, especially now that we are expecting a child.

I grew up with the TV in the house, but more and more i see the evil of it.

I don't want to judge, but this is how i expereinced the influence of the TV.

Ralph.
 
TV

I grew up without a TV and now after being married we still do not have one. We do have a monitor w/ which we occasionally watch videos, because they are easier to monitor (no pun intended :) ). But it's amazing how much worse television and movies have gotten since, say 5 or 10 years ago. I'm convinced tv watching also contributes to short attention spans... the kids I teach seem to suffer from them. A long time ago I read an article that said that God's name is taken in vain on an average of something like once every five minutes, and on commercials screens flash often once a second or more. No wonder pastors have trouble with sleepers in their congregation, having to compete w/ that (humanly speaking of course)! Especially when we consider how short our lives are, and how as Christians sin is nothing but a lie and contrary to what we were meant to be, it is so much better to err on the side of caution! So much of what is portrayed on TV is dangerous business... temptation abounds. I know that my heart is so wicked that it cannot stand the materialistic barrage of worldliness which we face for one minute w/o Christ... and we must give an account of how we spend our time! Just some ramblings....
 
If it wasn't for other members in the household, I would throw the TV out on the street corner and put a baseball bat to it. :flaming:

Granted I love the history channel and the prosperity teachers, but it is a little too much noise for me. I prefer quiet evenings in my library listening to classical music. :thumbup:
 
I hate the telly for the most part...

Yes, Matthew, my wife and I also like "most" parts of Trading Spaces (with the exception of episodes where the people on there have traded in the natural use of their bodies for the abominable/unnatural). Even then, I don't feel comfortable watching the idiot box.

I'm not much into watching cinema, and it takes my wife quite a bit of teeth- pulling (she's not a dentist) to get me to go to cinema with her. However, I'll go watch a Winnie the Pooh movie with her (she is absolutely obsessed with his character), and hardly find anything wrong with it.

I wish I could get rid of the telly altogether, but my wife uses it for background noise when she's studying for college. Oh, well. Such is life when your spouse feels compelled to use it. In the meantime, I'll bury my head in earphones and listen to some classical music or Iona.
 
ALAP! as little as possible! I told my family if they would be willing to pawn the T.V.s I would pawn the computer. We would of course keep one T.V. for the playstation.
 
The poll is missing now so I couldn't vote. We do not have tv. When I do see it it is like culture shock. I just seems to get worse and worse. What we do is get Netflix. We hear about good series from friends with tv and we rent a couple to see if we like it. Then we can rent the whole season. Its kind of cool because we don't have to wait to long if we are left in suspense we just put on the next episode. Ones we have enjoyed are all of the Stargate seasons, 24, Farscape, Babylon 5, and we like the Pride and Predjudice type movies too. There are several very good newish ones like Victoria & Albert (about Queen Victoria) and Wives and Daughters both of which were very good. I am going to watch Daniel Deronda tonight so I will tell you how it was. We have also started getting the Poirot mysteries that were a series in the UK based on all of Agatha Christies books. We have watched two and they were good. We did try out Smallville and I liked them but my husband did not. We only watch at night before bed so we have to agree. Oh and I liked Alias and watched those when hubby had to go on a business trip. If anyone knows of any other good series I would like to hear about them. I am waiting for the new Battlestar Galactica season one to come out and we are going to try that one. This is a great system for us because we don't have to watch commercials or other cruddy stuff to get to the decent stuff and its at our leisure.
 
About 1 hour (History channel or Food network) a week...exceptions to movies every once in a while. Sometimes Edward's resolutions come to mind...

"5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can."
 
I watch maybe one to three hours per week. That's about it. Ocassionally, we rent a movie if something is worth seeing.

Luther recognized that sometimes when one is spiritually battling with faith over an issue or two - that the actual exercise of faith is to go and do something else (work, music, enjoyment of entertaining company). In other words believing that God will work it out without your wrestlings.

"While this is an unbiblical binding of the conscience, it does have a good intention"
Click to expand...

This is always how a legalism & unbiblical practices slip in. If it is an unbiblical binding of the conscience then it must not be followed and rather resisted since the believer is to be bound by the Word of God only. Alter calls, grape juice, etc...all started with good intentions.

And there is a big difference in avoiding temptation & pretending to remove one's self from the world so much so as to never sin. The monks tried the later and failed.
 
I used to scoff at my pious grandparent's anecdotes about television being of the devil, but I see it as a complete waste of time for the most part--- I'd rather read or consume information in one way or another... I wasn't always that way... it took a lot of time... being in college, I just ran out of time for it, and broke the habit as I did with video and PC games. I've watched my share of garbage on TV in my day.... and teenage years mostly.

Being around certain friends and siblings, I get an idea of what pop culture non-sense is afflicting the masses. I could care less about American Idol or watching people eat bugs or worms on that stupid Fear Factor. I like watching movies, preferably historical or military in nature, but it's not that often. I think HBO and Cinemax type stuff are a utter waste of money and time... and best thing I did was break habit of watching idiot box. I prefer getting my news off the Internet to having Dan Blather and Tom Brokaw spoon-fed me their liberal dribble.

I think TV can be an idol as the Internet can be -- it distracts us and keep us focused on wrong things.

I can actually get along with an occassional video rental and bare-bones TV...

I'd say I am bout like Josh now-- 30 minutes a week typically... When I was in law school, i could probably count off the hours of TV I watched on one semester on one hand.

I work now six days a week.... and frankly don't care to watch TV when I get home from work.

[Edited on 2-6-2005 by Puritanhead]
 
We had a TV for the first year we were married, more so I could hook it up to the Apple II. Sold the whole setup and finally bought another TV about 14 years later (been married 25+). But we never really had cable - just a VCR and now DVD. My kids never got to watch Gilligan while they were growing up. :lol:

My wife loves movies and watches a few each week. I can't stand all the screaming . . .

But I like movies like Pride and Prejudice and Indiana Jones type so I'll go with less than 1 movie per week average.
 
Lets see... I would say about less than one hour a day... usually about 2-4 hours a week. I watch news and... occassionally the History Channel, when they are not trying to explain away every truth in the Bible.
I watch the news channels (Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN [when the others are on commercials]). Besides that, I don't really watch movies or shows. Used to watch Trading Spaces with the family before it started getting ... weird.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

OPC'n
  • Locked
How Many Squares Do You See?
Replies
25
Views
3K
OPC'n
OPC'n
P
  • Locked
How do you know you're a calvinist?
Replies
17
Views
2K
~~Susita~~
~~Susita~~
blhowes
  • Locked
  • Poll
American Idol - how much longer?
2 3
Replies
60
Views
6K
JasonGoodwin
JasonGoodwin
Wayne
  • Locked
  • Poll
"Hi, Jean!" [or, How Often Do You Bathe?]
Replies
20
Views
4K
Stephen L Smith
Stephen L Smith
sastark
  • Locked
Lost - TV
2
Replies
32
Views
3K
LadyFlynt
LadyFlynt
Back
Top