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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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:

LouisvilleLlama · 30/10/2016 15:23

So Natsku you essentially have a TV? I mean monitors are now generally 20+ inches and are generally TV monitors and when you choose It functions as a TV, and is consumed as a TV?

witsender · 30/10/2016 15:26

We don't have one. Used to, bit got rid of it in the summer.

CthulhuInDisguise · 30/10/2016 15:39

I have found that people I work with who don't have a telly are very keen to tell you that they don't have a telly, whereas those with a telly don't tend to harp on about it. FWIW I can take it or leave it most of the time - I like watching films and box sets on it rather than on a laptop screen because I think it's more inclusive and easier on the eyes, and sometimes it can be nice to sit in companionable silence with my DH while we watch the telly, or he watches while I read. It doesn't mean we don't talk to each other or that our son can't read or has limited social skills.

It seems bizarre that there is so much judgemental crap spouted by those without tellies, whereas you don't get that from those with tellies.

witsender · 30/10/2016 15:44

Well, people with tellies don't talk about them because it is the norm, and as other posters have said they talk about programmes etc. The latter being a sign of normality in kids.

It's never come up with friends, apart from when they come round and ask where it is.

FlyingGaribaldi · 30/10/2016 15:48

Nonsense, Cthulhu - look at this thread. It's full of snippy defensiveness from people with TVs who feel looked down on by those who don't, whom they're accusing of intellectual snobbery. In my experience (of my years without a TV - I have one now) the only reason it ever came up with other people was because they would insist on asking me my response to soap operas or whether I'd seen something 'must-see'-ish the night before, and didn't seem to register that I kept saying no, I hadn't. Eventually it probably did become 'No, I didn't see it, because as I told you yesterday and the day before and last week, I haven't got a TV', but the information didn't seem to sink in with some people, who then decided I must think I was wonderful and be a crashing snob because I hadn't seen the crucial murder in Eastenders or whatever.

I would rather cut my own arms off and feed them to myself before sitting through an episode of Eastenders or The X-Factor, but I feel sure others would say the same for the things I do for pleasure. The difference is I don't continually expect them to be au fait with some pastime of mine.

Laska5772 · 30/10/2016 15:49

It seems bizarre that there is so much judgemental crap spouted by those without tellies, whereas you don't get that from those with tellies.

Not quite.. I have been bullied by TWO bosses (in seperate jobs) for not watching TV.. (not that i make a poinbt of this to anyone actually,) but its because I cant join in with the office conversation apparently thus making me an 'outsider aka definately weird.. My last boss even acciused me of beiing Aspbergers because I dont watch TV.. The first job I left in the end because of the hostility , the second i am still in as i stood up for myself aftre the Aspbergers incident , although it hasnt done me any favours careerwise

I have NEVER disparaged anyone for watchingTV.. (in fact my Dh watches when he is here at the weekends .. I just prefer a book, the radio , or messing around on the internet ( aka weird then)

Laska5772 · 30/10/2016 15:51

Oops I typed that so fast (in a bit of a snit, I admit ) that its full of typos .. I can spell and everything..

BowieFan · 30/10/2016 15:52

FlyingGaribaldi

Except there is snobiness going on here. Have you not seen the poster who said it was "chavvy" to have a large telly? Or the poster who suggested that people with TVs don't talk to each other or read?

Konyaa · 30/10/2016 15:52

Ours hasn't been installed in new house been here two months - not a problem at all

BrownAjah · 30/10/2016 15:57

We haven't had one for about 2yrs since ours broke. We have an iPad for catch-up, Netflix etc. We're moving house soon and I think we're going to get one again. I want a bigger screen for movies

FlyingGaribaldi · 30/10/2016 16:05

Except there is snobiness going on here. Have you not seen the poster who said it was "chavvy" to have a large telly? Or the poster who suggested that people with TVs don't talk to each other or read?

I did, but I think they were more than countered by the reverse snobbery! It may be tiresome to have your giant TV over the mantelpiece construed as evidence that you're underclass, barely literate and communicate in grunts, but it's also fairly tiresome to be defined in some people's eyes by something you don't actually own. I don't actually own a vacuum cleaner, either, or a single pair of high heels, and it's 20 years since I've eaten meat, but none of these omissions seem to produce the same knee-jerk 'Oooh, you must think you're way better than the likes of us!' response.

Dontpanicpyke · 30/10/2016 16:12

No vacuume?

TwentyCups · 30/10/2016 16:15

I don't have one.

Have Netflix on the computer, probably watch a couple of hours a week max, although more this week with new black mirror out!

Everyone thinks we are very odd not to have a TV but it suits us, I wouldn't want one.

Natsku · 30/10/2016 16:19

So Natsku you essentially have a TV? I mean monitors are now generally 20+ inches and are generally TV monitors and when you choose It functions as a TV, and is consumed as a TV?

In essence yeah, just don't have a "proper" tv connection. Which I suppose we could as there's a satellite dish on the house but we don't have the right wires to connect and can't be arsed really. What's nice about just having the computer is that DD doesn't spend far too long lounging around in front of cartoons like she used to and OH doesn't leave the telly on when he's not watching it like he used to. Instead I can just tell them both to bugger off because I need to go on mumsnet

Katedotness1963 · 30/10/2016 16:34

We must be the "chaviest" family around as we have 5 TVs and there's only four of us living in the house...

PuppyMonkey · 30/10/2016 16:35

No TV?

Shudders.

Piscivorus · 30/10/2016 16:40

Back in the olden days when I was child or teenager there were only a few channels so TV was a big part of social sharing. Everybody watched Dr Who, Top Of The Pops, etc so kids who didn't were excluded from that. At my school almost everybody had a TV so those that didn't were instantly thought of as a bit odd. Sad, looking back, as it was their parents' choice, not theirs

Now there are more channels and more ways of watching so it is no longer a binary thing. Having a TV does not mean you are subhuman and glued to Jeremy Kyle all day, just as not having a TV does not make you an intellectual who spends the time saved finding new ways to split atoms.

witsender · 30/10/2016 16:44

I genuinely don't remember watching much TV as a kid, nor talking about it at school. As a teen I remember watching X Files once a week and films with friends as I got older, but I never remember it being a part of every day life. Which may be why I'm not fussed on it now.

CthulhuInDisguise · 30/10/2016 16:46

FlyingGaribaldi actually it's the condescending tone that's offensive - your last post about the "giant TV over the mantlepiece" and what you went on to say was a particularly sneering little gem (mine is neither giant nor wall mounted, but that's irrelevant).

I would imagine the lack of vacuum is not all that unusual if you have wooden floors

SpunkyMummy · 30/10/2016 16:59

We don't have a tv. Sure, we do have computers but we don't really use them to watch movies together.

The time DH and I spend together... I want us to do something together, not stare at a screen. However, we sometimes go to the cinema... so, I'm not sure how much sense my reasoning makes.

If the LO wants to watch tv... well, that can be done with a computer. But I don't think children should watch tv, tbh.

instantly · 30/10/2016 17:04

I'm chuckling at the idea of someone buying a TV and then carefully facing all their chairs the other way.

What's the point of a telly where you can't see it? Of course your sofa needs to be pointed in its direction!

Andrewofgg · 30/10/2016 17:06

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

Agree, but that's not what I said, is it? I said that development and speech can do very well without one, so it's not essential.

Of course there is plenty of "excellent and engaging TV for toddlers and little kids" but there is a lot more which is neither and much which is positively harmful. I mentioned my great-niece (by marriage) earlier; I also have a great-nephew by blood, now five and at school, whose mother's idea of stimulation and education was CBBC all day and every day, and while I was too polite to say so I cannot see that he can have got as much out of that as he would out of human contact.

Our species learned to talk before radio or TV!

FlyingGaribaldi · 30/10/2016 17:12

your last post about the "giant TV over the mantlepiece" and what you went on to say was a particularly sneering little gem (mine is neither giant nor wall mounted, but that's irrelevant).

Chthulu - you are misreading my post which was (a) heavily ironic and (b) composed of quotations from things posters have said on this and other threads. I don't give a shiny shite how big your TV is, what your armchairs point at, or whether you use it to watch nine-hour documentaries about 14thc Azerbaijani lyric poetry or 'Sun, Sea, Sex and Suspicious Parents'.

(And you're right about the wooden floors.)

FurryLittleTwerp · 30/10/2016 17:14

It's quite difficult for a TV not to be a main focal point of the room, with seats directed towards it - it's not as if you're going to direct seats away from something you're going to watch...

We have a 48" TV in the lounge, in an alcove next to the fireplace. The chairs focus towards both - DH has to sit in the one directly opposite the TV otherwise he spontaneously combusts whereas I don't mind a bit of an angle & slouch on the settee to one side.

I think it's too big & would have preferred a smaller one - I can't seem to get far enough away from it, & can't seem to see the whole screen at once without moving my eyes or head.

manhowdy · 30/10/2016 17:16

I imagine those without TVs are the same ones over on the Xmas pressie thread bragging that despite being a top 5% earner, all they get their DCs for Xmas is a lump of coal.

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