What do you do while you watch tv?

[Blissfultiggy]

Me and DH only have about an hour after the kids are in bed and the house is sorted before we go to bed. We usually just watch a show but I end up scrolling on my phone and missing whatever we're watching.

What do you do while you watch tv to keep your hands busy? I've started cross stitch and just got myself an adult colouring book but else do you do?

Something that doesn't have noise so I can still listen to the tv please

Good choices: crochet or yoga/ stretching
Bad choices: phone or cuticle picking

I have great difficulty watching TV so if we put it on I do jigsaw.

I just sit and on occasion I stroke one of the cats if they plonk themselves on my knee.

I have a jigsaw app on my iPad so do those!

I have adhd and have never been able to just sit and watch TV. Sometimes I make pom poms, knit, colour an adult colouring book, I have some magnet fidget toys too, or sometimes ill sit and pair all the clean socks (big family!)

We watch loads of subtitled TV so need to watch the screen. Trying to do something else at the same time just wouldn't work.

Knit, sew, eat, play a game on my phone. It depends whether I'm alone or with my partner. A jigsaw could be good.

We usually just watch a show but I end up scrolling on my phone and missing whatever we're watching.

You say that like you have no control over it. I don't do anything while watching TV, I just watch.

I crochet.

Read the Wikipedia pages of the actors on TV.

Phone here too, also crocheting. I can't just watch unless it's something you really have to concentrate on, like crime drama and even then I find it hard. Things like documentaries, comedies, lifestyle programmes I'm always doing something else, but I still enjoy them and take in the content. I've always been like this, it long predates mobile phones, I used to obsessively flick ceefax on and off or read newspapers and magazines while watching. My DM and DD are the same, there are definitely ADHD traits in our family.

I'm also a phone fidgeter.
As a child I would read and watch tv at the same time (I'm guessing not very successfully!).
And no surprise, diagnosed with ADHD.

But heard on a podcast that apparently some types of tv shows are made with the knowledge that people will be on their phones and just want something going on in the background.

Agree. Perhaps chose a different activity.

Listen to the radio or audio books, if you're not interested in watching a TV program?

I'm glad to read I'm not alone, I can't just watch TV no matter how consuming it is.

So not just me then! I keep picking up my phone when I'm watching tv because I just need to do something with my hands. If it's not my phone, it's snacking. Might start playing with DS's fidget toys.
In meetings I always have to find something to fiddle with so I can listen and not pull my phone out.