Balsamea Aranyaka

          I have kicked the television habit.  Both TVs have been permanently removed from the household, never to return (donated to a non-profit thrift shop).  As much as I may occasionally miss PBS and C-SPAN, which I greatly enjoyed and learned from, and which were the only reason I had cable service, I think I will be better off without that kind of passive entertainment and education.

          For a while, I may miss Bill Moyers, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, The News Hour, etc.  But there’s plenty of good reading available to replace their TV shows.

          The only radio I listen to is public radio.  I can’t stand radio commercials, and I don’t like songs getting piped into my head unconsciously (I don’t like it in stores, either — never felt good about other people choosing what gets fed into my mind beyond my control).  With public radio, I won’t have any shortage of news, commentary, competent criticism and cultural programs.  I get three public radio stations offering a broad variety of programming 24 hours per day.

          I have a nice little collection of music CDs and tapes, which may now get better use.

          I subscribe to one magazine now, the NY State Conservationist … which has no advertising, and is a great nature education resource for only $10 per year.  I just now ordered subscriptions to Utne Reader and The Sun magazines.  These, in addition to books, will be more than enough reading for one person each month.

          Beyond that, I turn to Mother Nature and hobbies for entertainment, inspiration and education.  When my cable TV service (also my broadband Internet connection) is terminated in a few days, my Internet usage will become infrequent, but it is available for research and some other things it serves well.  There will not be a computer running full-time in my home.  Internet access will be something I have to get from a library, friend’s house, or go somewhere that has a live WiFi connection I can use with a laptop.

          I’m confident that my life will not suffer for lack of television and full-time access to the Internet.  I may even grow a little more human, and grow more imaginative, more creative, less passive, and have more time to do other things better for mind and body.

          I may even write more interesting blog posts.

- The Balsamean
P.S.:  Some related information:

“Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness provides information so people can live healthier lives in functional families in vibrant communities by taking control of the electronic media in their lives, not allowing it to control them.”

Quoted by Screentime.org from AARP: January & February 2008 Magazine:
“To wake up refreshed tomorrow, scale back on screentime tonight.  In an Osaka, Japan, study, people who watched TV or used a computer more than three hours per evening were more likely than others to report insufficient sleep-even though their actual sleep duration was only 12 minutes less, on average.  Electronic media may increase your need for sleep and undercut its quality, say the researchers.”

“Currently we live in a world where escape is of paramount importance and facing reality is something to avoid at all costs. ‘News’ has become entertainment, there is no such thing as television anymore, everything is now a television and Second Life and Webkins are where we ‘live’ since we can control for everything, something we cannot do in real life. … When people take the plunge and reduce and or eliminate recreational use of screens their world opens up, the fear is eased, the sounds of nature soothe rather than unnerve us and everything slows to a human pace. Our relationships become important and time shared increases in value. It creates opportunities for our minds to expand, because we have time to invest in reading, exploring and daydreaming.”
- from the Screentime.org blog