TV wastes time. I hear mothers complain that there is "not enough time in the day." I cannot imagine what they are talking about. How many hours did they watch TV? You would get back that time and more. I hear people say "I just have it on for the noise". Yikes! Learn to bask in the wisdom of silence. Listen to your own thoughts, feelings, fears, prayers. You will be so much saner than allowing Oprah into your psyche.
TV impairs sleep. I see sleepy children on their way to school. Have they stayed up late watching American Idol? Why?
TV makes you fat. It makes you fat several ways. First of all, you are just sitting there for all those hours. Secondly, you are watching commercials for sugar, fat and salt. Are there any commercials for broccoli? I think there is one for avocados. The rest of the commercials encourage you to eat chips, pizza, soda pop and beer. Speaking of which, you are probably snacking while you are watching TV. Are you kidding me? This is time well spent?
TV is not relaxing. TV is a barage of messages all telling you your life is dull, inadequate, underfunded and sexually impaired. TV advertises 2 out of every 10 minutes. There is less than 1 hour of playing time in a football game. All those advertisements subtly or not-so-subtly tell you that something is missing in your life. This is meant to lead you to buy their product. Buying their product will not make you happy. It will make you spend money on something useless. When the useless product does not make you happy you will go to the doctor for a happy pill.
TV does not make you happy. Spending your time lazily watching other people have a (supposed) happy, athletic, trim, beautiful life will not enhance your life. It will make you depressed. Americans take more anti-depressants and start taking them at younger ages each year. We are stupid to think that happiness is the point of this life. But that is all TV preaches. And you are buying it.
TV is a crappy babysitter. You would not allow a big fat slob drinking a beer saying "Stupid" to babysit your kids, or would you? And yet, you allow them to watch the shows and commercials that contain TV's sad sarcastic slobs. When my kids have friends over, I can tell the kids who have been raised on TV - they are sarcastic, they have horribly short attention spans and are always asking for a snack. I call it TV-itis. Be your children's babysitter 24/7. It will wear you out; you will lose weight; and then your precious angels will get their driver's license and you will never see them again. Trust me on this one.
Get a life. Turn off the tube.
Get rid of the TV. Sell it or give it to a school. If you are the only sane person in the home who understands the long term destruction of TV then cut the plug with wire cutters. Claim you have no idea how it happened. Then watch what happens.
- there will be silence
- the silence will become filled with life. Raw life. Happy life. Sad life. Loud life.
- you will have loads of time
- you will not crave salt/sugar/fat as much
- you will cook meals instead of order pizza
- you will play board games and read books
- you will be different from other people. Your conversation will revolve around your personal activities and experiences, not those of athletes and movie stars whom you do not know.
- you will start thinking weird thoughts.
- you might start a blog, get a hobby, go for a run, pick up knitting, throw the ball in the front yard.
"A new study from Australia suggests that couch potatoes live shorter
lives.The study followed 8,800 adults ages 25 and older for 6 1/2 years and found
that each daily hour of television viewing was associated with an 18 % increase
in deaths from heart disease and an 11 % increase in overall mortality.Those who watched television 4 or more hours a day were 80 % more likely to
die of cardiovascular disease than those who watched two hours or less, and 46 %
more likely to die of any cause. It did not matter whether they were
overweight."Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association
Jan 11 online
Dallas Morning News
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