A television is almost a compulsory item in any house in the world.
Go to any house that does not have one and what comes across your mind? The people living in the house must be too poor that they could not even afford one.
The truth is, before the year 1923, we have been living our life without television. And our species is still able to survive and replicate without the invention of television.
So television is not really a need in our life. We can even do without it.
There are actually a few benefits of not owning a television.
Less exposure to advertisement. Free television channels earn their income mainly from advertising. And who is the end consumer of those advertisements?
When we see less advertisements, we are less motivated to spend money on unnecessary stuff. And we know that advertisements have the power of creating unnecessary wants and needs in our life.
More interactions with other human. Television is a one way communication channel. There is no such a thing as an interactive television.We only interact with the television when we flick through the television channels.
The time spent to watch television now can be used to interact and have a more fulfilling conversation with the important persons in our life.
This is more obvious for married couples. You get home from work and instead of turning on the television, you can now talk with your partner about your daily life. You are now “forced” to learn effective communication skills instead of avoiding it by watching television.
If you are a guy like me who lives alone, you have the options of going out and see your friends, or inviting your friends over to your house.
Having a more accurate reality of life. When we watch a program on television, we are merely an observer. We are not participating in those programs. And most of the time, what we see is what the producers of the programs choose to show us. It is a distorted representation of life.
Which one is more fun, watching a football match or playing football with friends? The answer is obviously playing football with friends.
Be more productive. All those time we save from not watching television can now be used to work on our personal projects.
So what if you feel like you can’t give up your television right now?
There are two things you can do to slowly give up your television.
First, cancel your cable television subscription. This is the first step to release yourself from the attachment to television. It saves you a lot of money as well.
Second, cut down watching television to only watching the prime time news. This is to ensure that initially you don’t feel out of touch with keeping up with the current issues.
As for replacing entertainment, there are a lot of things that can be done to entertain yourself. Read a book. Play some board games. Be creative with this part.
The truth is, we can live our life without owning a television. We have done that and we can continue to do so. The choice is in our hands.
Let us not make television another God that we worship every single day without fail in our life.