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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Does anyone NOT have a TV?

204 replies

H1ghw4y61Revisited · 29/10/2016 20:02

My little brother (12) is hoping to come and live with me in the new year. A friend of mine was joking about it today and said that will be the end of my having no TV in the house. Made me wonder if there are still people out there who chose not to have a TV in their house?

OP posts:
FlyingGaribaldi · 30/10/2016 12:28

What always strikes me is how defensive people with TVs are about those who don't - as I think I said up the thread, we never had one until one of DH's clients sent us one with some weird message about making us like everyone else or something,, as if not having a TV was some form of intellectual snobbery.

This man had never been to our house, and from what DH says, the only way he would have known we didn't have a TV would have been those conversations several people have mentioned on the thread where they ask you if you've seen something, you say no, haven't got a TV, and then they go on emoting about the programme anyway while feeling slightly irked. In his case, irked enough to buy and have a delivered a TV.

It's pretty weird. I could honestly not care less whether someone finds my pastimes odd or déclassé, or has issues with the way I arrange my furniture.

One thing I have noticed, though, is how much of a lot of regular watchers time TV seems to eat. I write novels along with a demanding full-time job, a small child, not quite enough childcare and a husband who travels a lot for work, and there's no way I'd be able to fit that all in if I watched TV for a couple of hours every night.

Seryph · 30/10/2016 12:29

We have a physical TV, but no TV service. We use ours to watch DVDs/Blurays on and use the Playstation to access Netflix/catch up services.
We are big gamers though and use our TV mostly to game on.

KoalaDownUnder · 30/10/2016 12:46

Oh, I don't think that not having a tv is intellectual snobbery. I don't have one myself!

I just think it's faux-intellectual-snobbery to look down on people who do, particularly when you stream off the internet instead.

It's not as if ownership of a TV set means much.

Artandco · 30/10/2016 12:52

Bowie - I don't see how our children are missing out. They see tv occasionally at school and I think that's enough. Dh works in the games/ tech industry, and he says he feels no need to watch any at home and doesn't feel our children need to be using it at their age. They really need to be reading fluently and good at maths to make use of actual computer coding. He will be teaching them, but from 12+, not at 5/6/7 years when they spend time playing with trains and digging in mud

H1ghw4y61Revisited · 30/10/2016 12:55

I think it should be a case of to each his own. I don't see having or not having as anything other than a preferance, and wouldn't go so far as to draw inferences re class or intellect from something that's pretty trivial in my mind. I was only curious as I hadn't much thought about the big screen aspect of things. I think watching on a laptop or tablet is the equivalent of tv for most purposes. I think it might not matter so much if I have an actual tv for littleB so long as I have wifi, and I will probably get a tv for the main living area just for the social side of things, even if just to stream stuff so we can watch it together or as a PP had mentioned to possibly use the shows he's watching as a springboard for conversations about his own experiences. Lots of interesting perspective at any rate. Smile

OP posts:
SamhainSoubriquet · 30/10/2016 13:00

I love my TV

It's only a 49" but we can't fit anything bigger in it

Got sky and Netflix.

Getting an upgrade this week

legotits · 30/10/2016 13:06

My TV is hand knitted so can't be common.

But really.
Do those that want the telly box in a less obtrusive place run cables around the room?

I can only remember the ariel socket being a factor in where ours went.

We have alcoves and a chimney breast but it gets too hot for a telly....because it's a chimney.

My working class sensibilities are all confused now.

NicknameUsed · 30/10/2016 13:12

"Oh, I don't think that not having a tv is intellectual snobbery."

Not for some people, but when posters make statements like this: "How about you talk to each other?" they have clearly assumed that people who watch TV do it to the exclusion of all family life, (or that they actually have people to talk to)

I still maintain that there is a lot of snobbery on this thread.

Oh, and for the record we didn't have a TV when I was growing up, because my mum thought it wasn't intellectual enough. I hated going to school to be regaled with "did you watch Dr Who on Saturday?" and other conversations revolving around what had been on TV the evening before.

My parents caved in when school told them that we were deprived, and then they became avid TV fans when we finally got one, although it was mainly used for watching wildlife programmes.

NicknameUsed · 30/10/2016 13:14

"I can only remember the ariel socket being a factor in where ours went."

Same for ours actually. The focal point in our living room is the fireplace, the TV is next to it. But having said that, surely the point of having a TV in a living room is so that everyone can watch it? So, wouldn't it have to be a focal point?

DotForShort · 30/10/2016 13:15

Of course it is perfectly possible to survive (and thrive) without a TV. I have known many people who simply aren't bothered about TV one way or the other (just as we aren't interested in video games so we don't have any games consoles). We do have a TV. In fact, we have two. We watch TV when we want to, but we are also a household of readers, etc.

I do find it hilarious when acquaintances announce that they have no television at all, with the clear subtext that this choice makes them vastly superior to the poor slobs with their TVs. And then it comes out that they watch every bit as much TV programming as the rest of us, via laptops or whatever. However, they still feel superior, as though the delivery method somehow elevates the content. That just makes me laugh.

NicknameUsed · 30/10/2016 13:16

Well said Dot. That seems to be the tone of some of the posts on here. Perhaps we should have a thread about people who never watch anything on any type of screen?

KoalaDownUnder · 30/10/2016 13:18

Yes, that's what I'm talking about, Dot. I don't think I was explaining well, but that!

BowieFan · 30/10/2016 13:20

Yep, I don't care if people have a TV or not, it's just that everyone I have met who doesn't have one has to proudly declare they don't have one, like it's something to be proud of and us TV lovers have to be ashamed. I'm not ashamed and I think that, actually, TV is something people are missing out on. Some of the best writing today is on TV and in movies.

There absolutely is snobbery - you only have to look at people calling TVs in living rooms "chavvy" and suggesting that people with TVs don't read (well that would be hypocritical, me being an English teacher and all) or don't cook or talk to each other.

Andrewofgg · 30/10/2016 13:20

I grew up without TV until I was ten because my father was blind.

DW's niece and her DH are bringing their daughter, now 26 months, up without one and I will be interested to see how it goes. She sees it occasionally in other houses (grandparents', great-grandparents' - but not ours because we keep it off when anyone visits) and (like me!) she is used to radio. So far she is a confident, engaging, and very verbal child. I just hope her parents don't weaken but I don't think they will - they cheat a bit on IPad when the LO is asleep Grin

TrumpsFluffyHair · 30/10/2016 13:20

The only person I know who never watches anything on any type of screen also plays the lute. Who needs Breaking Bad when you've got Tudor madrigals to croon!

BowieFan · 30/10/2016 13:22

Yes Dot!

"We don't watch TV, we don't own one. If we do watch something, it's on our laptops/iPads"

If anything, I think watching something on your own in isolation on a tiny screen with headphones is more shameful than watching something together on a screen that everyone can see and it's all happening at the same time!

user1473509591 · 30/10/2016 13:23

To quote Joey from Friends.. 'but what's your furniture pointed at?'
We have our TV on constantly, but tbh it's rarely watched properly. I just like the background noise. The kids don't pay it much attention anymore.

BowieFan · 30/10/2016 13:25

Andrewofgg

Right, so development and speech is based on not having a TV? Utter nonsense.

Plenty of excellent and engaging TV for toddlers and little kids. Something Special is one of the best shows on TV and my son who is on the spectrum learned Makaton because of it. He has developed normally now but that show was excellent for him at the time.

ForalltheSaints · 30/10/2016 13:30

I have one but know two people who don't. One of them did not want their children to have it as a sort of childminder- maybe now their youngest son has started university they may change their mind.

JasperDamerel · 30/10/2016 14:00

My ariel socket is in a place where a TV wouldn't go, so there has to be cables running all around the sitting room to get the TV in a place where you can watch it without being hit by a door. Which is why we hardly ever watch it, as the cable from the ariel has been trodden on too many times and is now very temperamental.

My furniture is arranged around the television. I don't particularly like it that way, but DP does, and the room is awkwardly shaped and would probably require new furniture for a different layout.

BusterGonad · 30/10/2016 14:04

I have a tv at the bottom of the garden hidden amongst the bushes, when I go down the garden to watch it I put on my camo gear complete with cap with a duck on, so the neighbors don't see me! I mustn't bring the neighborhood down with binge watching the omnibus of Corrie on a Sunday morning!

Natsku · 30/10/2016 14:07

Don't have one since we moved house. Just got Netflix on the computer and that does us although I do miss our daily Simpsons watching.

TrumpsFluffyHair · 30/10/2016 14:08

Grin Buster.

Natsku · 30/10/2016 14:10

And our sofa faces the record player, armchairs are by the book case. (we do have another sofa in the study though where the computer is so we can watch a film together)

NicknameUsed · 30/10/2016 15:15

"we do have another sofa in the study though where the computer is so we can watch a film together)"

I have crap eyesight and need a larger screen with better definition to enjoy watching a film.

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