Comments on: 9 Alternatives to Mindless Television

By: Abby

Abby — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:23:46 +0000

Pat: I SO agree with Swaptree.com. I have been addicted ever since I heard about the company at a “Green Living” expo in Boston. I love having a stack of books at my disposal and am always eager to get through them fast so I can trade them for something else. I even got rid of my cable TV yesterday in honor of a summer full of reading. YAY!

By: Eli

Eli — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:13:33 +0000

Another thing you can do, if you want to stay “semi-current” is to go to the network’s website and you can watch a lot of shows free. The downside is that a lot of them are about a week behind, so you still can’t discuss the last episode the next day, but you can a week later. It’s also a great way to see shows you missed seeing if you don’t have a PVR or DVR.

By: Positively Present

Positively Present — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:57:14 +0000

Great ideas here! I definitely agree with do something else and watch movies. Movies are, for me, more rewarding, and you’re probably going to spend at least 2 hours in front of the TV anyway!

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:01:53 +0000

@Kelg – Keeping your television in the closet is a great idea. We use to have a home theater and to keep everything simple I just wouldn’t hook up to cable unless there was something specific I wanted to watch. This only happened about once or twice a year.

@Pat – I hadn’t heard of swaptree. It looks very interesting. Thanks for point it out.

@Farfield – That is pretty much what my wife and I do. We have a LCD computer monitor hooked up to a DVD player that we’ll use occasionally as well.

By: kelg

kelg — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:25:17 +0000

We watch a few movies each month. Instead of TV, we are learning to play musical instruments (dulcimer, recorder), taking on-line classes, building a personal web-site, and doing other things together. To wind down in the evening we read books, magazines and do sudoku. I weaned myself off of TV by first cancelling cable. Then I unplugged it and put it in the closet. In order to watch anything I had to want it badly enough to pull it out and plug it in. Try it!

By: Pat

Pat — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:08:49 +0000

On the subject of amazon and netflix, I gotta recommend swaptree.com. I’ve probably gotten 50-some DVDs off of it, mostly in trade for books I haven’t read in years. It feels great to get a DVD for $2.50 in postage and a copy of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” that’s leftover from high school.

By: Farfield

Farfield — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:41:28 +0000

Good post! I actually got rid of my TV quite some time ago because I found myself too oftne watching stupid shows I actually didn’t want to watch. And that’s also just because it’s sometimes too hard to find the OFF-button on your remote control somehow. So I got rid of the thing.

I do still watch movies sometimes, but then I choose to watch myself. I rent a DVD then, and watch it on my Mac.