TV Pacifiers

Are any of you concerned with the amount or quality of television or movies you've been watching lately? I'm re-reading Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth's book, Serve God, Save the Planet and just finished a chapter on the negative aspects of television.

Now, before anyone lambastes me for trying to make them feel guilty for watching a little TV now and then, let me share a scary statistic with you. The average American citizen will spend 10 years of his or her life watching television before she dies.

Yikes.

I'm not a big TV watcher, but I do love movies. I love going to the theater and renting movies at home. Love, love, love it.

My husband is a big-time TV watcher. I bet if I didn't live here, it would be on just about all the time. But, the truth is, if it's on I will usually watch it, sometimes even against my will--I get sucked in. In fact, I even asked him to buy a headset for television watching because I cannot seem to keep my focus on what I'm doing if the television is on.

So lately I have been thinking that it's time to pare down on the television watching a bit. I just came across this great Web site which offers you 101 emailed ideas of what you can do instead of watching TV. I'm signing up.

The site also lists a lot of the reasons to turn off the "boob toob" (my parents favorite term for the television). And really, reading through the list, it did make me think: When's the last time I watched television and felt all happy and energized afterward? Does it ever make me inspired to do things that will positively effect my life? What else am I missing out on by watching too much TV?

"But it's just so eeeeaaaasssssyyyy. . . " I can almost hear someone responding. It's true. Watching TV is easy--incredibly so. Now televisions are installed in places I never thought they would be--in the back of minivans, at the grocery store, in restaruants. What did we do before all this constant TV watching? Hmmmm, I think we used to do something strange, called conversing. . .

Make sure you tell me if you sign up for the email ideas, okay? I'm curious to know what others think--I'll try to post some of the more interesting/unique ideas on this blog.