April 24, 2005
An unforeseen benefit to TiVo
I’ve blogged previously about how much I loved having TiVo. One of the downsides to my move, however, is that my temporary housing gives me access to nothing but basic cable. No DirecTV and no TiVo.
It’s been the best couple of weeks I can think of!
TiVo is a godsend to any TV junkie. The problem with most of what’s on TV is that at any given time, there might be a few programs mildly worth watching, and if you’re really lucky, one program that you actually want to see. TiVo, on the other hand, gives you access to programs you really want to see, whenever you want to see them.
It was especially helpful to me, since several of the things I like to watch (motorcycle racing) will be midday on Sundays, or during the work day, when I have better things to do than watch TV. All of a sudden, having TiVo made me able to watch the programs I wanted to watch without ever having to worry about missing those programs if I had other plans. It gave me both the ability to watch TV that I liked, without being a slave to the programming schedule provided by others.
But it came at a price. Since I had the ability to watch all the programs I liked, and they were recorded and waiting for me, I felt obligated to actually watch them. I had a difficult time ever deleting anything I’d recorded without watching it, because it seemed like such a waste. I don’t know if I was truly watching more or less TV, but I had more of a stake in watching TV, because I had the ability to watch something I liked.
Then the bottom dropped out. I moved out of the apartment, into a temporary situation without TiVo. Due to the trees at my new house, I won’t be able to hook up my dish and TiVo there either. But I’m no longer worried that I’m going to miss it. Since I was so spoiled by TiVo, I am now forced to make a choice. Watch bad TV, or no TV at all?
I can’t stand to channel surf anymore. I can’t stand to sit through (ugh) commercials anymore. If I’m forced to make that choice, I choose no TV at all.
And that’s how it should be. I have more time to play with my dogs. I have more time to spend blogging. I have more time to read. No longer do I care what’s on TV, because it has just ceased to be important to me. Since so much of what’s on is utter crap anyway, I don’t see any reason to subject myself to it.
The true benefit of TiVo for me has not been how much better it made the TV watching experience while I had it. It has been the realization that I no longer need to spend my time watching TV at all, now that I don’t. Now, if only I could summon the willpower to use that extra time for exercise, I’d be set!
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Brad, You didn’t mention, “more time with my wife”. I hope she doesn’t read your blogs. Lucy Stern
Back when our son was in high school our TV went out and rather than fix it or replace it, we did without. That lasted for about two years, no TV and we did just fine without it. Instead of getting my Astros “fix” on television I got it via the radio; the rest isn’t worth watching anyway. And yes, there was more time to be with Lucy.
While I was attending Ohio State University I plugged into cable. You could put my grades on a time-line and see exactly when cable was installed. I went network-only (four channels) for 8 years after leaving college and finally broke down and allowed a friend to give me the first three months of a new subscription.
Now, even though I have cable, the wife and I primarily watch Cheers and other long-standing favorites on TV Land, and of course Seinfeld reruns on TBS. Everything new on TV is crap, except for Apprentice.
Uncle Jack
May I infer from this article that you have finally moved several thousand more miles closer to me?
-Sam
Nope… I had to move out of the apartment and live here temporarily. I will be in ATL in 2 weeks though. The scheduled arrival is exactly 2 weeks from today.