People that don't have tv's

[Moominfan]

Teach me your ways. My toddler has broken my tv. We only own the one. I think he's thrown something at it and cracked the screen. Past three days not really missed it myself. There are times when I plod the toddler in front tv to make dinner, phone calls ext. that's the bit I'm struggling with. I'm going back into education on Monday and trying to see this as a positive. End of day it's so easy to just plod myself down when I could be doing other things.

I haven't had a TV in 24 years - I do have games consoles but only in my office so the kids can't play them unless I am there and unlock them. Honestly, I've not missed having a TV at all - we have Netflix, NowTv and Kodi that we can all watch on all of our devices so honestly we don;'t need a tv at all - think about it, what do you REALLY watch on your TV? very little i'm going to guess if your family is anything like ours

Yea we had Netflix on the tv. Bar mobile and laptop for uni we don't have any other devices. Was thinking to go fully cold turkey

Peaople DO have TVs!

They just do what used to be done on a television on a smaller, individual screen!

There are very few people out there that don't watch some kind of visual/screen entertainment at home at some point in their lives.

I do think it's sad that it's a much more solitary activity theses days too.

Yea I have a Mobile and laptop. Now TVs gone I want to cancel Netflix and see how I can cope without altogether. I've not introduced iPads so all he knows is tv and now it's gone he's adapted pretty ok but only a few days in yet

"Honestly, I've not missed having a TV at all - we have Netflix, NowTv and Kodi that we can all watch on all of our devices"

So of course you won't necessarily miss having a bigger screen (which is what a TV is) to watch stuff on. Because you're still watching TV.

What I'd say is, while the TV is on, sometimes playing nursery Rhymes on YouTube, children still play. Give them a phone/laptop and they stare at the screen more.

Watching Christmas films etc are better on a bigger screen.

You could start saving and wait for cheap deals.

I have never had a TV....

I have a laptop which I use for admin, and odd bits of kids homework, but no watching. I do have Netflix on my phone, but only watch things after the kids are in bed (I'm a single parent, so it's nice to have the "company"!).

We do have an Xbox which is connected to a projector, and the only screen time the kids have is a film night on a Friday evening, when everybody is tired. We all get into our pyjamas and make a thing of watching something together.

Otherwise, there are loads of books, and I keep a well-stacked arts and crafts cupboard.

Works for us so far, we'll see when kids hit their teens!

What I'd say is, while the TV is on, sometimes playing nursery Rhymes on YouTube, children still play. Give them a phone/laptop and they stare at the screen more.

^^This

Plus, not all children's tv is dross.

People saying you don’t have tv but have Netflix..... isn’t that also watching something?

I have a friend who has no tv, no smart phone (has an old fashioned one - Nokia) and an old iPod he uses to get podcasts from. He genuinely watches nothing. He and his wife and kids do yoga and play games etc in the evenings. I guess the kids just get screentime from school. But they (adults) watch nothing, news is from newspapers they read in the am.

I love the ‘I don’t have a tv response’ who then goes on to point out they watch televisual entertainment on other devises 😂 Yeah that kinda loses the credibility of the statement but sounded impressively hipster before listing all the alternative screens 😂

We have a physical television but it isn't connected to the aerial, so we only have catch-up and Netflix, not 'live' TV. For us it's a perfect compromise because it makes us a lot less likely to just pop on the TV in the background (who would bother to actively go into catch-up to watch morning TV, or old repeats from E4?), but we'd really miss the big screen - DH and I normally watch either a half hour or an hour (one episode of something, however long that is) of TV a night, and I think it would be a shame not to be able to snuggle up and watch that together. We had to watch Game of Thrones on an iPad (because we were ahem, 'sharing', my parents' Sky account) and it wasn't nearly as nice, comfy or sociable.

Watching things on a device is still essentially ‘having a tv’! We only watch tv at the weekend during term time - we just went cold turkey, it was a bit weird to start with, but we got used to it really quickly. I don’t watch stuff on my phone, but am still on it way too much for other reasons!

Honestly, I've not missed having a TV at all - we have Netflix, NowTv and Kodi that we can all watch on all of our devices

Why do you think that's any different from watching Channel 4? 😂

Dh has a laptop and an ipad which he uses to watch youtube and I watch youtube and surf the net just using my phone. We don't have Netflix etc. because we find everything we need on youtube. I often rent/buy movies or series via google.

We do other activities like walks and gardening or crafts and the dcs just go on their computers and play strategy games or surf the net.

I think people associate having a tv as having free view channels /sky . I say to people “I don’t watch telly” but I have a big screen for YouTube/Netflix. Cancelled sky ages ago and haven’t missed it at all!

We havent had live telly or a telly even for 10 years. I got rid of it in the end cause it felt as if the adverts played longer than the actual tv show and i got agitated (my initial reaction to things that bug me is to rid of them ) so i did and have never looked back. Sometimes if im having an evening in i'll watch ITV hub, netflix or youtube on my ipad. But it hardly ever happens now, once you dont have a telly you look back and wonder how you ever had time to sit and watch it.
Maybe for your toddler if you need to distract him, invest in a little cheapy tablet or something that you can play kiddie shows on.

We love our TV

I love being able to watch something that we all enjoy such as the new BGT’s champions

It does make me laugh when people say, “we don’t have a tv. Don’t miss it either. However we do watch Netflix on a tablet ”

I think OP is saying she did have Netflix on her old tv and is now thinking of going cold turkey on all the devices?

See, I think do what you like but imho there is nothing intrinsically wrong with TV, it’s not automatically evil fir a child to watch something on a screen.

I haven't had a TV in 24 years...we have Netflix, NowTv and Kodi that we can all watch on all of our devices

I see lots of people have already picked up on this and given what would have been my original response. So my alternative is to propose a MN rule to decide whether one "has a TV". If the context of the discussion is the decoration or layout of a room, you can say you don't have a TV if you don't have a device that was sold as a TV set. If you regularly watch video of any kind on any form of device, then for the purposes of a discussion about watching TV, you have a TV.

I think there are people on here who genuinely believe they don't need a TV licence because they only watch live TV or iplayer on a tablet.

(You know that if on NowTV you watch the news channels or sport or anything else that isn't on-demand streaming, then you do need a TV licence?)

I don't have a TV or any streaming services on my laptop but everyone is telling me to get something now as my son will be labelled as the weird one at school for not having a TV. In my case I feel it is very much a case of you can't miss what you've never had as my son has never had a TV at home he doesn't expect it and I have had to come up with other ways to keep him quiet while I get my jobs done. If your plan is to go cold turkey I think you might find that your child gets a bit angry as they are used to watching TV. Maybe the occassional yputube video on the computer will be enough to pacify them and eventually they will get used to not having a TV.

The only time I liked not having a tv was when I was in uni and all my fun came from going out.

You’ll be fine OP, he won’t miss it, and you can play stuff on the laptop if you desperately need the distraction.

Back in my day when people didn't watch TV they ACTUALLY didn't watch TV - they didn't go on to list all the other screens they use to ... watch TV

That said I would love to get rid of all screens, except for maybe the wheeling out of an ancient TV at Christmastide or after the harvest has been brought in..

They just do what used to be done on a television on a smaller, individual screen!

There are very few people out there that don't some kind of visual/screen entertainment at home at some point in their lives.

This with bells on. I have no TV as such, but waste enough time on the interwebs in other ways.

Best year of my adult life productivity was 2008-9, when I rented a flat with no TV, no Wifi, no landline and a crappy mobile with no internet capability.

My God, did shit get done that year.

No box in the corner or screen on the wall here. tv watching is done via my laptop/ipad.
, r3 and r4 are my main go-to radio stations and all the beeb documentaries,both live and catalogued are excellent. And the live broadcast last night of BoJo blustering his way through his address to parliament was, well, priceless
I pay my radio&television licence and for me it's worth every penny.

Why 'pacify' them?

You do realise that there are amazing dramas, fascinating documentaries/factual programmes and hilarious comedies out there?
And a fair bit of cheese too!

What is so intrinsically wrong with watching TV (or any other device?)