I've been through several phases in regards to TV.
When I was younger, I enjoyed following a lot of shows and comparing notes with my friends. Then I got older and found I had a few favorite shows that I watched whether friends were watching them or not.
I then went through a phase where I felt TV was important for cultural intelligence -- knowing what's popular and what isn't. Sort of a cheap way to fit in with popular society without actually having to meet people.
Then I went through a History Channel/Science kick. I found you could watch all kinds of cool science-related stuff on cable almost ad-infinitum. Curious as to what the world would look like if people disappeared? Cable's got that. Want to know the role of tanks in WWI? Cable's got that too.
It was all kinds of stuff that appeared to have some science value. I could justify it by saying, "Hey, I'm learning important facts about the migratory patterns of African Swallows here."
For the last couple of years I've been in the "I control the input" stage. That is, I watch only things that I have planned to watch ahead of time and only on Tivo/DVD. I hardly ever watch "unprotected" TV -- just me and the remote.
Finally, because of this board, I've decided to cut out TV entirely except for movie-watching every other weekend or so. After a couple of months of doing this, I can attest that it is one of the better decisions I've made in my life -- assuming I can keep it up.
TV is just so much bullshit. All of those years, and all of those tens of thousands of hours, accomplished me exactly nothing. I'm not even sure they were relaxing as much as it was simply anesthetizing. TV watching for peer groups was great if you wanted to fit into peer groups that chatted about American Idol. Favorite shows became dated. Cable was just a big time suck -- like one of those bug zappers except for idle minds. Pop science is eye candy and over-generalizations. In fact, the conclusion I reached is that TV is something where you will automatically find some kind of reason for watching whether it really provides value or not. It was all just rationalization.
When I stopped watching TV I had an awful thought -- what would I do now? I was used to feeling just slightly bored and pushing a button and being entertained. I had been trained that feeling bored was somehow abnormal, instead of a natural impulse that makes people do new things.
If you spent ten thousand hours staring at a stump there would be something wrong with you. But you can take that same time and watch all the episodes of the popular shows for the last ten years and accomplish exactly the same thing: nothing. And by doing that somehow that makes you "normal"