“Are you kidding me? What’s wrong with you?”
I know what it is to have my peers question my sanity in not-so-subtle ways. To be looked down upon. To be mocked, judged, and ridiculed.
Confession: I don’t have a TV.
I’ve never seen Lost or Survivor or Heroes or Sex and the City. And though I’ve watched an occasional episode of The Simpsons and Friends, I can’t chose a favorite or spew out witty best-of-the-best quotes. I’m not up on my celeb gossip, don’t care who wore or won what at the Emmy’s, and was never sought out as a companion for pop-cultural dishing around the water cooler.
People always ask me why I don’t watch television, like I’m depriving myself of some important entitlement to raise money for a good cause or protest the corporatizing of American media. Truly, it’s more a matter of logistics than me being a counter-culture hippie (yes, I’ve been called that and worse!). We got rid of our old TV when we moved cross-country last year and just haven’t replaced it. I’ve gone through other TV-free periods in my life, too, and each time, I’ve come away better for the experience.
Why? It’s easy. I’d much rather read a book than watch a TV show.
Top 10 Reasons Books are Better than TV
- Books don’t convince us to buy stuff we don’t need. I just returned home after spending 2 weeks with relatives who have multiple televisions, cable, and DVR. It was easy to get swept up in the current of American Idol, America’s Next Top Model, General Hospital, What Not to Wear. But each day, I had to fight the urge to run out and buy a bunch of random crap I don’t need, like new shoes that make me fly or body wash that electrifies my skin or a mop that enables babies to eat safely from the kitchen floor. Not only does TV make us want to buy new stuff, it also makes us feel like the stuff we already have isn’t good enough! Books don’t do that. No subliminal marketing messages live between the paragraphs of my favorite stories.
- Books aren’t passive. True, reading a book doesn’t exactly get the heart rate up like running a marathon might, but it’s still an active activity. We’re engaged with something in our hands, eyes moving over words across the page, fingers turning pages, heart and mind connecting with and visualizing the characters in a way not possible with the glowing blue IV-drip of television.
- Books make excellent travel companions. iPods aside, television doesn’t fit in my purse. We can’t set it on our laps during a plane or a car ride. We can’t lug it out onto the beach while we soak in the sun. And why would we want to, with the world of books at our sun-warmed fingertips?
- Books don’t dictate cultural “standards” with irrefutable visual examples. Another downside to my recent TV bender — in addition to being overwhelmed with a sudden need to consume and acquire, I felt fat, financially unstable, ugly, and otherwise inadequate. According to TV standards, I don’t fit in, and chances are, neither do you. We don’t have the right clothes or hair or things or car or overall look. But when I read a book, such details are left to my imagination. Even when the author describes the scene, I’m still creating actual images in my mind, and I don’t create images that make me feel like less of a person.
- Books don’t suffer from pop-cultural neutralizing. Ever notice how all of the characters on television start to look the same? To say the same things, drive the same cars, eat the same food? Flipping through the channels, sometimes it’s hard to tell one show from another, as nothing stands out as unique or special anymore. But books are always unique. Authors could be given the same plot outline and still come up with wildly different takes on each story. Books don’t blur together in my mind when I try to recall them later.
- Books are great company. Unlike television, which many people leave on all the time for the “company” of background noise, books really are good company. I love to read when I’m alone, to connect with the characters and become part of their worlds. I love thinking about them after I’m done reading, too — about what they said and how they changed and what I learned through their story. I can’t do that with background noise.
- Books take us to new worlds. Part of a book’s ability to transport us from our world to another lies in the creative abilities of the author as she forms and invents the worlds of her stories. The other part lies in our own imaginative powers, our abilities to actively visualize what the author describes on the page through the filters of our own unique and special experiences and lives. Television, on the other hand, sucks us into the same world, over and over and over. Tune in next week for… more of the same. Yawn!
- Books don’t pull us into a black hole, unable to account for lost hours. People ask me how I find the time to read and to write. My answer is always the same: I don’t watch television. Often, they respond with, “I don’t watch that much TV, either. Only X, Y, and Z.” But X Y and Z adds up to an average of 151 hours a month for most American TV viewers, according to a recent Neisen study. That’s more than 5 hours every day. There goes all of that writing and reading time!
- Books don’t have commercials. Commercials that interrupt our connection to characters and story. Commercials that not-so-gently remind us of all the things we “need,” act now, don’t delay, limited time only. Commercials that propagate wanton consumerism rather than creativity.
- Books are the soul of humanity in written form. The world of books represents the collective conscious and unconscious struggles of human life, delving into the real and the unreal, yet always seeking truth. Always seeking to impart wisdom and learning, even through entertainment. While television seeks to divide us into haves and have nots, rich and poor, attractive and unattractive, books seek to unite us. To connect us to stories and to one another through our universal human experiences. Books, like eyes and art and music, are windows to the soul.
Giving up television has freed my time, my mind, my emotions, my sense of what’s important and real. And it’s enabled me to better connect to that universal human experience, through reading, creating, and living.
So from one “counter-culture hippie” to another, I challenge you to do it! To stop turning it on and start turning the pages. You might surprise yourself! Try it for at least a week or so. Even if you can’t shut it off completely, make the decision to take back an hour or two of your life each day and pick up a book instead.
If you’re willing to take the challenge, or if you’ve cut down on your viewing habits already, I’d love to hear about your experiences!
Comments
1 Jordyn // Mar 20, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Haha, I love this, though I am watching TV right at this moment – I don’t usually just plop down in front of the tube but I’ve got a horrible toothache and am trying to keep my mind off it..
I watch the following shows:
-The Office
-House
-Friday Night Lights
-(and occasionally the new Ace of Cakes episodes)
So that amounts too… 16hrs a month, if I catch them all.
2 Shari // Mar 20, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Excellent post!
I don’t watch TV either, with the exception of the occasional hockey game, and I can say a loud AMEN to this list — particularly #8, 9, and 10.
3 Lisa Kenney // Mar 21, 2009 at 12:30 am
Fantastic post and some great reasons I’d never thought of. I’ve had several TV-free years (not recently though) and I was better off for them. Perhaps it’s time to kick the habit again…
4 Marilyn // Mar 21, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I loved your post! My husband and I haven’t had TV for over four years – he’s gone even longer without one. We read, yes – but we also take long walks, hike the mountains, split and chop wood, sew, build stuff, garden (and put it all up) which led to building the root cellar. We’re building a little homestead. We’re in shape. We read very, very interesting books.
On your post – I laughed out loud at #1. We were visiting a tv household recently and were amazed at the host of “be clean, be rid of germs, be rid of stinky” commercials and yet outside, our living, breathing natural world is being choked and killed by all the chemicals from so many cleaning products. I loved #10 so much that I had to print your post. Thanks Sarah
Oh, one more thing. Instead of watching TV, I wrote a book.
5 Marjorie // Mar 22, 2009 at 10:19 am
We haven’t had a TV since moving back to the UK from Italy nearly 6 years ago – I’m sure that’s what has kept our two boys reading avidly. The only problem is, when we go and stay anywhere else, they get square eyes! My pupils are inevitably horrified when I tell them no, I didn’t catch such-and-such a programme because we don’t have a TV – and the next question is always concern for my kids!
6 C. Lee McKenzie // Mar 26, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Right on, Sarah. We shut down the TV when our son entered high school–sorry we didn’t do it earlier. That changed our lives so much for the better.
Give a book and a clean well-lighted place to read and I’m already in heaven.
7 amanda // Aug 31, 2009 at 3:01 am
can somone help me l have to do a book report
8 Leva // Nov 17, 2009 at 5:26 pm
No but i disgree with all of you, Books are mch better then just being a fat slob watching t.v? who would wanna end up like a slob?? you!!
9 Kim // Dec 28, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Sarah, I can appreciate a little of what you are trying to say/do, but in all honesty, I think that watching TV can be a good thing for the following reasons:
1) Most of the people that we watch on TV are actors, and some of them are very talented actors. And a lot of the creation of TV shows comes for the collaboration of talented writers. By pigeon-holing all TV and thinking that it’s all crap is not supporting these actors and writers, some of whom I think work very hard and would like to be admired for their talents. Also, I think you are missing out on quality shows such as Arrested Development and some other good ones.
2) Watching TV is a form of entertainment, just like reading a book, watching a movie or seeing a play. Everyone needs to unwind sometimes after a hard day’s work, and I do not think there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that’s a very important thing to do.
3) The invention of the DVR makes it possible for people to skip through commercials. I don’t like watching commercials either, but I don’t loath them all. Some of them are selling good products made by engineers and the commercials are written and produced by writers and video-engineers who are trying to make a living.
4) Life is too serious to take it seriously all of the time. Because of that, I don’t think there is anything wrong with – God forbid – watching the occasional really bad TV show. Sometimes, “it’s so bad, it’s good” and it ends up making me laugh, which I think is very important.
All in all, I think that the acting and writing professions are very creatively and well carried out in a handful of TV shows, and you will even see some actors who have done work for both TV and movies (Jason Bateman, Christopher Lloyd, Steve Carell). As a rule, I don’t think it makes sense to pigeon-hole much of anything, as there are always exceptions.
You may be thinking that I have some ax to grind. That I am a TV actor, or something. Well, I’m not. I just have an opinion on the subject, and I wanted to voice it. Oh, and let me finally say that I think books are great, and if you are wanting to learn something, I would much rather try to learn something from a book as opposed to TV (aka cooking or how to fix your bathroom.)
10 Alvin Badoye // Jan 17, 2010 at 5:49 am
I think that this is a great “debate”. I really appreciate the view points, very helpful for a family as well. And thanks a lot, i wrote it down and want to share it with my friends at the university. Thanks a lot, and special thanks to Kim, for giving her opinions. it helped me a lot… though i don’t watch TV, but I’m eating books , lol, i might watch films, or documentary for my studies, if needed, just like for the earthquake in Haiti. But i agree, books are fascinating.
11 Cindy Fox // Feb 28, 2010 at 1:03 am
Top 10 Reasons TV is Better than Books
1.TV lets us see real examples of places, people and things, great if you want to know what Venice looks like, how expressions are interpreted or how clothes are made and by whom. Three recent shows I’ve watched, two on Netflix via the Xbox and one on the Green Channel.
2.Active images give us the world, even if we can’t quite make it there this week. I’ll never make it to Antarctica, but to see the images with my own eyes is something that expands my view of the world, whether I see it in National Geographic magazine, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Talks or in Paul’s books. His journey is shared with me. Seeing the earth from space and even artist’s renditions of space travel are more expansions of our real, tangible world that most of us will never get to see.
3.Self control and critical thinking. Filtering through the images that come at us on network TV give us skills to navigate the world. Advertising comes on radio, billboards, magazines, shopping carts, sports stadiums. Where doesn’t advertising come in? I have even seen it in books.
4.TV opens the window to other cultures. Seeing Blood Sweat and T-shirts or a cruise through Italy or a myriad of local small town restaurants, either in the US or around the world gives rise to understanding and seeing that others truly are the same and yet different at one time. Often when we read, we project our own experiences and understanding of people onto characters, or we think the characters or locations being exaggerated. Seeing with the lens of a camera may bend your mind, but it’s good exercise.
5.Flipping channels necessitates a variety of shows, from sports, fashion, crime, humor, the list is endless. Meanwhile, Romance Novels are the most popular books. Cookie cutter storylines, paper thin characters. No hard thinking involved, just escape and fantasy.
6.A window to other times as well as places and people. Recreating the past, such as in Cold Case, where not only a mystery is solved, but characters grow and change in sub stories and a look at how things used to be, whether it’s the 30s, when knowing cars didn’t have radios helped cracked the case, or the 20s when the 18th Amendment helped cause as much crime as it solved or the 80s when disco was king, knowledge of historical events and society is gained, while a story is unfolding.
7.Pause and rewind, slow motion, examining angles, director’s cuts, subtitles in different languages, the possibilities of examining what you’re watching are endless. Books. Created in a vacuum, apparently, for all the insight we get into the creation.
8.Books pull us into a black hole, unable to account for lost hours. People ask me how I find the time to read and to write. My answer is always the same: I don’t sleep! I sit down intending to read only one chapter, but I can’t! It’s like an addiction and so easy to just keep going! TV wears out my mind and makes me want to turn it off, usually to go followup on concepts or ideas. The computer is my next stop after TV. It also is after books as well, but usually just to look up the author’s other works and put those on order next!
9.Books don’t have commercials. Commercials give us time to get a snack, go to the bathroom. I have to carry the book with me. There’s no way of getting away from it! Commercials are loud and aggressive, so usually off putting, making me not want to support their maker unless they’re being particularly clever and having a funny slant. Even then, while I thoroughly enjoy the Mac vs PC commercials, I certainly would NEVER buy a Mac, for reasons too numerous to go into here. My child learned critical thinking early. When he states how the food on the TV is never as good as it is in real life, or that the cereal doesn’t taste as good as what they said, the requests soon stopped. We bought what he requested and analyzed it, so that he could understand the marketing motives and his own desires. The fact that they are not one and the same is a great lesson. One that seems simple, but from this list of anti-TV makes me wonder why people are so susceptible to anyone or anything’s other goals. That seems to be a different issue if one believes in self responsibility and choice.
10.Creativity is the soul of humanity. Whether written on paper, glowing computer screen or TV screen, all creative endeavors represent the collective conscious and unconscious struggles of human life, delving into the real and the unreal, yet always seeking truth. Always seeking to impart wisdom and learning, even through entertainment. While poor content, such as romance novels and soap operas seeks to divide us into haves and have nots, rich and poor, attractive and unattractive, rich content, such as in documentaries, complex movies, shows and books, seeks to unite us. To connect us to stories and to one another through our universal human experiences. Good content, regardless of delivery is a window to the soul and to our world.
Hi I’m Cindy and I’m a bookaholic! Or perhaps, an informaitonaholic! I can’t get enough of a good thing and to cut myself off from TV would be as silly as cutting myself off from books. You want to discuss content and pros and cons, great! You want to shoot the messenger, what’s the real message? Geez, I’m reading this on a web page. I just realized it must have no value. I’ll wait until it comes out in a book!
12 sarah shannon // May 4, 2010 at 10:25 am
i love watching telivision and i try to read i really like the commant
13 Adam // Aug 13, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Thank you so much for this post.I will find a great companion in books.
14 sara davis // Sep 9, 2010 at 8:56 pm
I’m a book fiend. I have a couple thousand volumes. I watch TV only occasionally and usually via steaming.
You portray reading as superior to watching TV. But I don’t think there is anything inherently better about reading than TV. They are both methods of escape or education.
Reading is is a black hole in my time. I waste as much or more time reading as most people do on TV. 85% of my reading is not exactly high brow or educational. I don’t claim to have any superiority over people who spend time watching TV.
In fact people who watch TV are often far better informed about the current events and culture than I am. As a result they tend to make better conversationalists than I do.
The best I can say is that I do well on vocabulary tests. I’ve read quite a few popular science books but I have friends who can more than keep up with me because they love science documentaries.
I think it is a myth that reading is some high brow and superior way to spend time. There are lots of mindless TV shows and lots of mindless books. Your choices in both are what make the difference.
The reality is that people who use their free time to DO something active, accomplish something productive, learn something new, engage with another human being are the people who are the ones living the fullest lives.
I do agree reading is wonderful. But reading is not superior to TV. Its the same waste of time and escape from mundane reality. Very little real living is done when you read or watch TV.
15 chris // Nov 10, 2010 at 5:06 pm
your oppions are bullcrap books are long and hard to read you hippys!
16 Louise // Nov 15, 2010 at 4:48 am
Not all books are hard to read. Firstly, I’ve seen two year old’s try their best at reading, so it cannot be that difficult.
Secondly, Hippies don’t read books because they didn’t go to school
Finally, how many times have you heard the term a book potato?
17 jordan alfred // Feb 28, 2011 at 11:18 pm
awsome for ma essay
18 M@sT3R CH3If // Mar 17, 2011 at 4:09 am
bOOks Suk COck You HOM3less PeopLe GEt a liFe and G3t EnouGH MOney$$ to Buys h@lo Reach SO I C&n Sov3 Ur Cocks Up Ur asses lolololololol
19 wtf // Mar 17, 2011 at 4:11 am
Wtf did he just copy Arby and the cheif
20 UNKNOWN // Aug 15, 2011 at 2:29 am
“Books don’t have commercials. Commercials that interrupt our connection to characters and story. Commercials that not-so-gently remind us of all the things we “need,” act now, don’t delay, limited time only. Commercials that propagate wanton consumerism rather than creativity.”
Books also have ads at the back of a book and most DVDs don’t have ads.
21 Erica // Jan 19, 2012 at 8:51 am
Interesting points. Here’s my point of view:
“Are Books Really Better than T.V.?”
http://asinspiredby.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/are-books-really-better-than-t-v/
22 Gwen // Jan 30, 2012 at 9:59 am
I started to lrean to read because my parents were always laughing about certain parts of books, and I didn’t understand the joke. At the age of 3, I started learning. I haven’t stopped since. I’m doing a persuasive essay for LA, called “Television is not better than books.”
One of my reasons is that watching TV requires less metabolism than sleeping. Ur not doing anything!!!
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