How many of you don't have a TV

[mike_c]

41. it's like being an ex-smoker....

For a short time you miss it, often a lot. Then when the craving passes, you swing the other way, find it gross and unsettling, an intrusion into your daily life. Eventually, it just becomes something you once did, but have zero desire to do again. Are ex-smokers "superior" to smokers? I'm an ex-smoker, my partner smokes. I prefer not smoking. And I prefer not having a noisy box spewing media culture into my home.

That doesn't make me "superior," although it certainly does make me happier than I would be otherwise. Occasionally I watch television in hotels and such, maybe once every two or three years. I can never take more than a few minutes of commercial programming, just like the taste of tobacco smoke makes me sick now. I used to crave it. Now it repels me. TV is the same way.

Perhaps before you condemn folks who find themselves happier without television, you might try it for a year or two. Long enough to clear the craving out, so you can reconsider from a different perspective. You might find yourself in exactly the same position that I'm in, utterly appalled by what most Americans find "entertaining" (if its dominance of commercial programming is any indication of what American TV watchers actually want, of course).