We don't have a TV in our living room anymore. AIBU?

[mrsm43s]

So many people think its weird!

We have plenty of tvs in the house! Our bedroom, upstairs spare room, plus everyone has a tablet or a phone or a laptop or some other way of watching TV if they want to.

We don't have a tv downstairs.

AIBU to think that the days of everyone round the telebox to watch mindless crap are over?

TV itself is fine, but its OK to not make it the centre of your life and family!

We don’t have a TV at all. We prefer a cuddle, an episode of something on Netflix or amazon on the iPad and an early night. We are 4.30/5am risers for the most part so bedtime is usually by 9!

YANBU, do what you like.

Personally I prefer a living room with TV than TVs in bedrooms.

No TV at all when I was at uni - best time ever, we were all forced to socialise with one another

What about playing board games together/going for a cycle ride together/cooking and eating together/days out together/walks together/shared interests and hobbies. So many other (and generally more interactive) ways to spend time together apart from sitting in front of the TV.

Why do you think people who have TV's in the living room don't do any of those things? And why is watching TV in separate rooms any better than watching it one room?

I wouldn't get rid of mine. We enjoy family film nights and I don't allow the children on their phones/tablets with headphones in as it's just even more anti social. We dont have a tv in the playroom or anywhere else downstairs.

If we wanted to watch the same thing on TV, we'd do it together in the same room. Just not the living room. And it doesn't happen very often.

The fact that we do not have a TV in the living room means nothing other than it better meets our viewing needs to have it elsewhere. Nothing more than that. It's amazing what a huge amount of judgement and misconceptions people are coming up with, based purely on the fact that our TV is elsewhere than the living room.

How does the statement "we don't have a TV, we prefer Netflix on a tablet" even make intrinsic sense though?

Effectively you just have a really small TV.

Watching Netflix isn't not watching TV.

I used to work for a tiny private primary school, the founder of whom was passionately anti TV, the school was screen free except in the office where there were computers, the lessons were holistic with a full day per week in the forest and time spent gardening and working with wood and other back to basics stuff. It was all great as far as it went, but her no TV for primary age children (nor of course for younger children) stance was akin to an evangelical religion.

She invited me to her house after I'd worked there a year. Imagine my surprise when I walked through the kitchen with her to see her 8 year old son sitting at the table glued to YouTube on a laptop with headphones, so closed into his own world he didn't acknowledge us.

She didn't have a TV though.

So I think what you were asking is ‘is it weird to have TVs in every room of the house except the living room?’

Well yes and no.

No, in the sense that it’s not strange to have a TV-free room in your house.

But yes in the sense that as worded in your OP it sounds like you have decided that you no longer wish to watch TV as a family as you think it’s somehow wrong?

When my dc were small, I purposely did not put television in the living room bc i wanted a placefree of distractions to play/Talk. When we moved, they were teens. I offered to change and they preferred it this way. We have them in other communal rooms. But when we are in living room, it's family time.

I prefer no TVs in bedrooms. The TV in the living room can be switched off if no one is watching it.