TV used to dominate my life
Then a few years ago, a realisation changed everything
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A colleague and I recently got chatting about what we get up to at home. In response to me telling him I don’t watch TV, he bemused, ‘So what do you do in the evenings?’ Ironically, this conversation happened on set whilst filming an episode of MasterChef.
I found the fact that he couldn’t fathom the idea of doing something other than watching the box after dinner a telling commentary on modern society’s relationship with the television.
Sure, I might not watch TV today. But that hasn’t always been the case – far from it.
I had a sheltered childhood
Up until I left the London suburbs to go to uni at the age of 18, the handful of social activities outside of the home I was permitted to do without my parents present included: earning money (I had various weekend retail jobs); the cinema (only if Aarti’s Mum was letting her go too); going to concerts with my older and very responsible cousins; and the occasional sleepover at a friend’s house.
My parents wanted me at home as much as possible because it meant they didn’t have to worry about me. Also – first born, a girl, immigrant parents – I get it and I hold no grudges (mostly because I more than made up for all that lost time at uni).
To encourage my complicity in this plan, I was given three unrestricted home freedoms, which I think were unusual at the time.
I was allowed to wake up as late as I wanted on weekends. I was allowed to play my music loud. And I mean, really loud. For hours and hours. Floorboard-shaking loud, usually Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill on repeat. And I was allowed a TV in my bedroom.
It’s only with adult eyes I see the common denominator across these; they all kept me confined to my room.
None of us can remember the exact age my personal TV appeared, but I’ll wager it coincided with whenever I became less interested in playing and toys and more interested in what my friends were up to. So probably the start of secondary school, about 12 or 13.
I pass no judgment
When I’ve looked back on the TV-in-my-room thing, my initial thoughts have been: it is wild I was allowed this. I’m no parent, but I’d like to think I wouldn't be OK with it. Today we understand there are links between high levels of screen time and slower child development, but this wasn’t known back in the 90s.
Yes, most houses back then had a TV and pretty much every 13 year old was watching it. But for a young teen to have their very own TV that they could spend hours glued to, while not even having to leave their bedroom? I think that was uncommon.
I’m sure my parents just loved freeing up brain space from potential hand-wringing anxiety about my wellbeing and whereabouts, knowing I was only upstairs, safe from the world and all its “dangers” (aka boys — I went to an all girls school, obviously).
I had a whole world of four terrestrial channels at my fingertips with zero parental guidance. No wonder I didn’t really mind not being allowed to leave the house on my own.
So yes, my adult self thinks it was unconventional to let a 13-year-old self-entertain with a TV in their bedroom. But on second thought, it was really just the 90s equivalent of having a smartphone, which a lot of kids seem to have today.
TV was my babysitter
Either way, watching TV occupied the largest chunk of my free time as a child. And this started from a very young age. My parents had – what I consider to be — an ingenious way of avoiding having to wake up on the weekends at the unholy hour a young child likes to wake up.
At the age of about 5-6, they taught me how to turn on the VHS by myself.
On Friday and Saturday nights, my parents would set up a Disney film ready to go and instructed me that when I woke up the next morning, I was not to come into their bedroom and wake them up, but instead head downstairs, turn on the TV and simply press the play button.
They would wake up refreshed not long after and make me breakfast. I was delighted at having watched The Jungle Book for the 4th time that week. Everyone was happy.
I am never not in awe of parents. They deserve to grab any opportunities they can to make their lives that little bit easier; you’ll find no judgment here.
My parents trusted me implicitly that I would never touch anything in their absence that I had been told was out of bounds – be that china ornaments, crystal vases or a bottle of bleach – and I never did. Child locks and safety gates were not a thing in our house, even for my brother who arrived 8 years after I did.
For any parents of young children reading this aghast, I say don’t knock it until you try it. Disney was the unpaid weekend babysitter and I turned out just fine.
Wait, why don’t I read anymore?
Fast forward to adult life and my pattern of TV consumption hadn’t really changed. Earning money replaced getting grades and telly continued to occupy most of my evenings. My husband and I even ate our meals in front of it, plates of food precariously perched on cushioned lap trays on the sofa.
Then one around 2018, I came to a realisation I was unhappy with – I didn’t read books anymore. I used to love books! I watched a lot of TV as a kid, but I did also read a lot of books. Why did I not read anymore? And if I wanted to read, when would I do it? I worked from home so had no commute. And by lights out, I was too tired.
I wanted to identify something I did consistently every day that might be a good time to read. I eat dinner every day. I could read then, instead of watching TV!
So I started doing that.
It meant my evening meals moved from the sofa to the dining table. Not long after, my husband followed, migrating to the seat opposite to join me. I went from mindlessly eating dinner whilst staring at a screen and having read 1 book the previous year, to eating dinner at the table whilst reading chapters out aloud to my husband and getting through 32 books.
This seemingly minor shift in the format of my evening marked the beginning of the gradual decline — and eventual complete demise — of a routinely automatic habit that had quashed my creativity and held my mind captive for the best part of 20 years.
I was starting to watch a lot less television.
Then the global pandemic arrived
When the national pastime became media doom scrolling, tuning into the daily live briefings from heads of state and a voyeuristic curiosity of what celebrities were getting up to locked away in their mansions, I was pushed in the opposite direction.
I wanted to retreat from media and technology entirely – no screens, no Zooms, no death toll numbers, no graphs, no banana bread recipes.
Something had switched in me. It was around this time in April 2020 that I stopped watching TV and video entirely and by proxy, also the news. It was a metaphorical dusting off my hands of the whole thing, I was done with it.
I haven’t really looked back since. And I haven’t missed any of it, at all.
Half of our free time is spent staring at the box
On average, people in the UK watch 4 hours and 31 minutes of TV, streaming and video content (like YouTube) at home each day; this excludes what’s watched outside of the home.
Whilst my daily TV consumption as a teen regularly exceeded this, and I have immediate family members whose daily consumption currently exceeds this, as an adult, I can’t help but think that this seems… quite a lot?
Let’s say you’re awake for 16 hours each day and eight of those hours are spent at work or whatever your daily responsibilities consist of. Of the eight hours remaining, more than half of that is spent consuming TV and video.
Essentially, half of our free time squandered on watching other people living their lives rather than living our own.
Are we all OK with this?
I am not saying we should stop watching TV
I’d be out of a job, for starters. But also, TV is amazing. I can list endless shows I have adored over the years. Series, box sets and films that have changed my view on the world and really made me think.
I understand TV time is often people’s down time. TV can be stimulating, comforting, educational, inspiring, hilarious. It can also be trashy, affording our brains a free pass to sign out for the evening. TV is part of our British culture and we are really very good at making it. TV is familiar and it can also mean company.
But rather than sitting sedentary for hours on a daily basis, staring at bright lights and moving images, perhaps there are some other things we could occasionally try, that are a bit more enriching for mind, body and soul.
OK, I do watch some TV. I’ll watch it if I’m on it. And I’ll download something if I’ve got a long travel day ahead. I recently smashed through all six episodes of Spent with my shoes off and a glass of wine whilst being delayed in an airport. I thoroughly enjoyed every second.
But since I stopped watching telly, I have noticed some obvious and positive changes over the years.
I read way more books. I have more time for my hobbies. I found the time to work out what my hobbies were in the first place. I rarely ask myself, ‘how is it 10pm already?!’. I no longer get that weird, spaced out feeling after finishing an episode – needing a moment to register where I am and what time it is – that made me feel uncomfortable and resentful.
And I sit for a lot less. My husband and I make an over exaggerated silly deal when I do actually sit on the sofa, because it happens about once a month.
Is watching TV the new smoking?
If you’re reading this sitting down, you might want to stand up for this bit.
Comparisons have been made. The problem is of course, not the TV itself. It’s all that sitting.
Research in Australia has shown six hours of TV a day can cut life expectancy by nearly five years. What I find particularly interesting / disconcerting is that no matter how much you exercise, it does not cancel out the negative impact of prolonged sitting.
The detrimental effect on health that prolonged sitting has is so bad, that some academics have even taken to referring to chairs and sofas as ‘serial killers’.
So whilst many of us might be forced to sit in vehicles and at desks for much of our working day, we’d do well to not continue that once we’re off the clock. And because most people don’t watch TV standing up, the adverse effects on our health extended bouts of TV watching has, cannot be denied.
An extra day of the week
People regularly ask me how I fit in all the things I do and one of my answers is – I don’t watch TV.
According to that OFCOM report, this gives me an extra 31 hours of free time to play with each week, compared to your average person on the street. I also often hear people say, ‘there are not enough days in the week’. There’s your extra day.
If you are a person who watches a lot of television and you also often find yourself saying, ‘I don’t have time to do X, I’m too busy to do Y’, there could be a correlation between the two.
Perhaps there are things you would love to do but haven’t managed to get around to, like updating a photo album, trying a new stretching routine or descaling the kettle.
If we reclaimed even 50% of those 4 hours and 31 minutes each day, imagine what we could achieve.
The problem is rarely the thing itself
Whilst I know it has been life-changing for many, conscious abstinence – from anything – is not something I would personally undertake. In my book, there is a time and a place for most things.
The problem is rarely the thing we are consuming, be that alcohol, doughnuts, social media or TV. The problem is the relationship we have with these things.
When consumption becomes mindless and automatic – rather than coming from a place of deep-seated desire and being fully present for the event – it has the potential for becoming problematic. Especially if consuming the thing becomes a crutch, a pacifier, a distraction, a means with which to avoid sitting with yourself and your internal landscape.
If you’re desperate to catch-up on the latest gripping thriller, have the best time! But do so thoughtfully, maybe even make an occasion out of it.
TV as a weekly event
Like the young family I recently stayed with in Portugal do. A household with no television, one laptop and a 7-year-old who is not routinely permitted screen time, but it isn’t completely out of bounds. Because each Sunday is family film and pizza night.
I was invited to join and the experience was quite different to anything I had been used to. From the build-up of anticipation starting at breakfast, to every second of the film felt with each person’s whole being, to a post-film chat about the characters at the dinner table while we finished our pizzas. And no adult looked at their phones, once.
Then the laptop was packed away and this deeply appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed family occasion would happen again, the same time next week.
I have only the most cherished memories of my childhood. But following that film night, I couldn’t help but feel a little mournful about just how many of my formative years had been spent worshiping at the temple of TV.