I gave up _not_ watching TV and found myself more engaged with friends, family and colleagues. A world where nobody watched TV might be a more cultural and educated place, but in the world we actually live in, cutting yourself from it has negative consequences. Everything in moderation.
I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#12The headline implies she went from zero to hero after quitting TV, but she'd already submitted her PhD thesis and was already close to her marathon time goal. I don't think TV was the difference.
Besides, the implication is TV is some morally bankrupt mind-killer, but there's plenty of intelligent programming out there, not everything is "The Bachelor."
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#13This article makes the assumption that people are not watching TV as a mental decompressor. Depending on your job and hours you may very well not have the physical and mental energy left over to engage in extreme physical and mental activity.
Actually, I'm a PhD student myself, and Netflix/Amazon/Twitch is how I decompress at the end of a long day of classes and/or research. I guess it depends on the person; some people find physical activity enjoyable, while others (like myself) see it as something that must be done in order to stay healthy.
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#14I gave up TV, those things didn't happen, but my wife left me, and took the kids and the dog
Correlation...
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#15I gave up TV, those things didn't happen, but my wife left me, and took the kids and the dog
But did she take the truck?
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#16Next week's article: I gave up my obsession with marathon training, then spent more time with my family."
Next next week's: I gave up obsessing over my family, then was able to clear my Netflix queue."
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#17> I was feeling proud until I realized I had started to transfer my TV time to Twitter and Facebook. How was that better?
As the author observes, even if you stop watching TV, it doesn't mean you'll automatically be more productive. It's a struggle.
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#18Narcissism, I would argue, is a far more dangerous thing than TV. The author's narcissism lets her celebrate all these unlikable cliches: being a fitness guru, being an "aspiring writer," being an academic overachiever, having a perfect husband and incoming baby or whatever. Then the style: preachy, written in the first person, chronologically. As though the only way to write about yourself is like an upbeat propagan…
Depression has a nasty way of driving us to cut down other people with self-esteem.
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#19We at least have an option of not buying TV. Internet addiction is far worse. The sad part is I can not even avoid my laptop as it is where I do all my work. The device on which we work is slowly the biggest source of our time sink
And now its all ad-free binge watching...sigh.
Re: I gave up TV, then qualified for Olympic marathon trials and got my PhD
#20We at least have an option of not buying TV. Internet addiction is far worse. The sad part is I can not even avoid my laptop as it is where I do all my work. The device on which we work is slowly the biggest source of our time sink
Just edit your hosts file and route your most time consuming websites (i.e. hackernews) to localhost:
127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com www.facebook.com www.youtube.com