
Giving Up TV for a Month Changed My Brain - artsandsci
https://www.fastcompany.com/3060491/what-happened-to-my-brain-after-a-month-without-watching-tv
======
Goronmon
_During the first few days we were at a loss for what to do. It had been our
routine to watch whatever is on TV after dinner, and suddenly we were both
dumbstruck for ideas. So we went to sleep at 8:30 p.m._

Two things about this confuse me.

1) Running out of "stuff" to do. Maybe it's because it's been literal years
since I've watched scheduled programming and don't understand the habits
involved anymore, but I can't understand this idea of not knowing what to do
with free time. We watch what's likely way too much TV on some days, but all
the things they "discovered" they could do with all this time are still things
we do regularly, without cutting off the TV entirely.

2) How do people just "go to bed" early because they get bored? I'm actually
jealous of that idea. If I just decided to "go to bed" early, it would most
likely involve me staring at either the ceiling, my phone, or a book for a few
hours.

~~~
asark
> 2) How do people just "go to bed" early because they get bored? I'm actually
> jealous of that idea. If I just decided to "go to bed" early, it would most
> likely involve me staring at either the ceiling, my phone, or a book for a
> few hours.

I did a no electronics _and no electric light_ after sundown thing for a
couple weeks. Lived after-dark hours by a couple candles—found two beeswax
tapers are about the smallest amount I could comfortably read by, assuming
they were close, though unshaded looking at them directly by accident and
being blinded/feeling eye-pain was a real problem. Beeswax because once you
notice how chemical-spill-smelling the cheap parafin ones are you can't un-
notice it.

I went to bed way earlier than I would have otherwise, during that time, and
generally much better rested than usual. I think it was a combination of the
lower light _and_ the lack of hyperstimulation from having a world of audio-
visual, passive and interactive, entertainment at my fingertips. I'd usually
read for a while then turn in, not because there wasn't more I _could_ do
(there's always more to read) but because it was just _time to sleep_ and
because I didn't have a friggin' carnival going on in my house I actually
_felt_ that.

I'd thought my whole life I was a night owl, but now I'm pretty sure 90%—or
more—of the "I just _can 't_ sleep at night, it's how I am" stuff you read on
here and other places on the Web is the same problem I (actually) had/have:
our houses are friggin' amusement parks complete with incredibly bright
lights, so we're constantly hyper-entertained and hyper-distracted. Of course
we can't sleep! We've got more and better entertainment than a damn Emperor's
celebratory feast would've in yester-year—with the relative plenty in food and
drink to match, I might add, should we desire it—and it's _on tap_ , in our
homes, 24/7.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Also, many device screens and light bulbs have daylight color temperature
which can disrupt melatonin. It's amazing how blue LEDs are built into
everything.

I wish some of the smart bulbs makers would get rid of their fancy mood
lighting colors and make a light bulb that automatically adjusts its color
temperature and brightness with the sun (or at least an ideal sun cycle if you
don't want to go to bed at 5pm in the winter, or live in Alaska).

~~~
pault
I already do this with hue white LED bulbs and timers in the app. I love how
the blue mid day light looks like natural sunlight, and in the evening it's a
nice warm glow. I have it fade to dark between 9pm and midnight, so I know
it's time to go to bed when it starts getting difficult to see things.

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miki123211
Blind person here. I actually wonder if audiobooks don't have similar effects,
on some people at least. For a while, I used to read a lot of books, mostly
not requiring much thinking. Lit RPG was my favorite genre). I mostly used to
read ebooks with speech synthesis at ungodly speeds which I'm used to, so I
could finish medium-sized books in a single day of binge reading. I remember
having book marathons, which were not that dissimilar from watching a whole
season of one show on Netflix in a day. I didn't have to exert much effort, I
just used the continuous reading function of my screen reader and let it
speak. Not going to sleep until very late at night just to know how that damn
book will end is also no news for me. The fact that there are no real breaks
between parts, as in show episodes, makes it even worse. Sure, there are
chapters, but switching between them in audiobooks is automatic,
instantaneous, and they're sometimes short enough that I don't even pay that
much attention to it.

I sometimes watch TV shows with audio description, a special audio track
overlaid on top of the normal one, with a narrator describing the visual
aspects, and I don't enjoy them as much as books. That form of entertainment
seems to require much more concentration and I'm often tempted to just stop. I
think that for us blind people, the books vs shows thing may be completely
reversed.

~~~
foxyv
I love LitRPGs. It's like candy in book form. Almost no substance and my brain
just turns off.

~~~
miki123211
this is always my killer argument in any "books versus TV" discussion. Not all
books are educative and have qualities one would associate with literature.

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gringoDan
I've often found that towards the end of the day, when my brain is tired, I
don't have the energy to read (much less code or work). Yet I can stay up for
another hour or two passively watching TV.

I suspect a lot of us are the same and we'd be happier and healthier had we
just gone to sleep.

~~~
grecy
Like a recovering alcoholic who avoids going into places that serve alcohol,
it's much, much easier just to get rid of all TVs from your house so the
temptation just doesn't exist.

~~~
exhilaration
I think a lot of us now consume Netflix and other services on our smartphones
and laptops.

~~~
fredsir
Block it, then.

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phil248
The phrase "watching TV" has lost all meaning.

If someone mindlessly flips channels all evening, watching hundreds of
commercials and "whatever's on", I can see how that can be detrimental. For
most of my life, that is what "watching TV" meant. I am amazed that anyone
still does this.

But if someone watches a handful of shows they have selected that suit their
particular taste, and then watch those shows at the time of their choosing and
without commercials, the downside seems minimal. They are still "watching TV",
I suppose, but it seems like an altogether different activity.

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merpnderp
One summer I gave up watching TV (or video of any sort) for the summer and
read 36 books in 3 months. I don't have summers off, so this was just an
arbitrary period. I don't know if it changed my brain, but I remember thinking
much clearer and feeling much more engaged with life. But how long can you go
before rewatching the Office or catching up on Game of Thrones? We're all only
human.

~~~
eikenberry
IMO that was reading, not lack of TV. Reading for me definitely changes my
thinking, most obvious in that my inner dialog changes tone to match the
author I'm currently reading. This is one of my favorite parts of reading and
plays an big role in my choice favorite authors and books. On the other hand
watching TV or not doesn't seem to have this or any other noticeable affect on
my thinking other than a bit of content (or not).

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hx2a
I agree with this, and believe the positive changes will continue the longer
people go without tv. I've been without cable for 8 years and I'm so much
happier.

When I visit my parents they always watch tv after dinner, and while sitting
with them I've noticed how terrible tv shows are. It's strange, but it's like
once the spell was broken I could see it for what it is: contrived and
unoriginal narratives designed to keep people's attention and get them to sit
through commercials.

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jccalhoun
Can you imagine someone writing an article, "I gave up listening to music for
a month and it changed my brain" and people having a positive reaction to it?

~~~
gallamine
No, but if the title was instead "I gave up listening to [the top
commercialized] music for a month and it changed my brain" I suspect it would
receive a positive reaction.

~~~
sdinsn
I don't think it would.

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mrlala
One thing that has worked really well in our lives is to not have the TV in
the main living space. Our kitchen/living room are all open and there is no TV
there.

To watch TV, we have a theater room. So it's an intentional act to go in and
watch something, we don't just leave stuff on in the background.

Obviously being able to segregate this isn't possible for a lot of people's
living spaces.. but it is really nice making it an intentional act. It's like
my kids and their computers- we have a room for that. They don't have tablets.
If they are going to play electronics, ok go there sit down and do it. But
once you are somewhere else like the living room that is for reading/talking
etc, not for sitting on a tablet.

~~~
misterprime
That sounds pretty healthy. Can you share how often the living room gets used
for reading and talking? In most homes I see, these spaces go unused in favor
of the TV room.

I was raised in a "single tv" household and I think it helped that we all had
to compromise on what we wanted to watch. This was before laptops were common,
so screens are much more ubiquitous now. However, during the 90s it was common
for each bedroom to have its own TV.

~~~
mrlala
Living room gets used every day. It's not tucked away, it's in the center of
the house with the kitchen, so that I like as well.

It really is interesting how the layout of a home can really determine how you
function in your life day to day!

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mikece
Much has been written about TV being a passive stimulus for the brain with
hypothesis being that the lack of active stimulus causes atrophy of the brain.
Reading doesn't have the same effect because the brain has to actively process
the written glyphs to language and abstract concept so there's more processing
happening than when you're just watching something.

~~~
mreome
I've always thought that the the difference may actually be the reverse, in
the fact that reading provides less information (and requires less input
processing). The reader has to fill in all the gaps using their imagination,
which seems like a more active mental process then the more "automatic" input
processing even if such input processing may be more mentally complex.
Arguably, you're actively processing much more information watching TV. Your
brain is interpreting both sounds (usually a complex mix of language, music,
and other natural and natural sounds), as well as as stream of rapidly
changing and complex visual information. In both cases the viewer/reader still
has to interpret and process the more abstract "story" elements, but in the
case of the reader they are also constructing mental images/sounds/scenes as
part of that process, as opposed to just consuming them. So while the TV
viewer may be processing more information, they are doing so passively and
their brain is mainly focusing on that passive automatic process. The reader
is "exercising" their mental capabilities more as they have to fill in more
gaps using their imaginations.

~~~
philipodonnell
Does this at all depend on the type of show? I find when watching programming
with a lot of ambiguity (mysteries, procedurals, etc) my brain is very active
trying to anticipate or think back to connect dots to follow what's happening.
Compare that to spectacle programming like sports/drama/reality shows where
everything is happening onscreen.

I wonder also about foreign shows where you are forced to read while the
action is in progress.

And then combine that: I can watch reality shows with my wife and feel no real
change in energy, but then we watch something like "Dark" (subtitled and very
mystery-box format) and I feel exhausted by the end of the episode.

~~~
mreome
That all makes sense. There are some kinds of TV/movies where viewing is more
mentally engaging. Mysteries, deep sci-fi or documentaries, anything where you
are imagining and/or trying to understand aspects outside of the audio-visual
experience. I was mostly just saying that in broad strokes that the most
passively consumed written story still requires some 'active' imagination,
where-as viewing a lot of TV/movies does not seem to.

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kh_hk
I find it strange that YouTube is only mentioned once in the whole article
(about listening to an old radio programe). I am curious if YouTube was
considered or not as a kind of TV during the experiment or not.

~~~
oarsinsync
> No TV. No Netflix. No live streaming anything.

> we listened to CBS Radio Mystery Theater on YouTube, a radio program

I would assume they didn't _watch_ anything on YouTube

~~~
yayadarsh
No _live_ streaming. I wonder if this is purposefully specific.

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TheJazi13
Honestly, what's wrong with being well rounded in your entertainment? So
frequently there are articles plasters about how you must "give up" things
like television.

I'm listening to an episode of How I Built This at work, will read some Game
of Thrones on the way home, will watch Love Island with dinner and probably
throw on a record as I get ready for bed. It's not an all or nothing game
here, you can just enjoy life.

~~~
basscomm
> Honestly, what's wrong with being well rounded in your entertainment?

Absolutely nothing. However, people are weird, and everybody is wired
differently. Sometimes cutting out the thing completely is the only way
someone can control themselves.

For instance, an alcoholic might not be able to moderate their drinking and
abstinence may be the only way they can beat the addiction.

Similarly, someone who is addicted to television might not physically be able
to moderate their television viewing, and it takes going cold turkey for a
while for their brain to adjust and new habits to form.

I'd even go so far as to say that a large number of people addicted to
television don't even realize that they're addicted to it. Over the last few
decades it's become normalized and expected that Everyone (for varying
definitions of 'everyone') has at least one television that's the center of
their entertainment life, and every waking hour that they're home the
television is turned on and tuned in to something. If it's not, then the
person is _weird_ because television is What You Do(tm) when you're home and
not working.

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VPZaQk8
Dam I just watched season 3 of Jessica Jones in one sitting, guess I'm fucked

~~~
misterprime
On a scale of Luke Cage Season 1 to Daredevil Season 1, how good was Jessica
Jones Season 3?

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codesushi42
It depends on what you watch. For abstract concepts such as math and
programming, I can sometimes learn faster or gain more complete knowledge by
watching videos on a subject. Sometimes visuals that are in motion make it
much easier to understand concepts that are very difficult to explain in human
language. I believe the written word is ill suited for expressing a lot of
information that is less tangible.

Videos are usually a good supplement to reading, at least for me.

I also don't regret spending time to watch a documentary or the news if my
brain needs a rest after a work day. And some new knowledge is imparted on me.

------
ashton314
I didn't watch television for 2 years. (I watched a movie on _rare_ occasion,
but that was the exception.) I read a _lot_ during that time. It felt
fantastic. I don't think I've ever had so much thinking space.

I still don't watch a lot of television. Occasionally a movie with my wife on
the weekend. I'm pretty happy with it. :) Sure, there are other things I do
that are probably a waste of time, but one step at a time.

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badrabbit
After adulthood,I didn't get a tv until my late 20s. When I did get one,it
really helped with "taking a break" from other things, with streaming I had to
find content but with TV I just tune in without all that much care about the
programming.

Although, I still haven't gotten cable,it's mostly streaming IPTV(sling.tv and
pals)

YMMV

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lostmymind66
I gave up cable 10 years ago and I haven't looked back. I now have more time
in the day to actually get things done.

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fma
I've given up TV for years. Having kids does that. The spare time I do have is
in HN, Reddit, Google News etc... I'd like to reduce that, as most of the time
it adds no value to life (except HN, sometimes)

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rvz
This is absolutely true. I thought I was crazy when I cancelled my TV license
here in the UK a year ago. But after several months, I wasn't missing out on
anything.

I never felt more productive in getting things done.

~~~
icebraining
Getting things done is overrated. You're just spending more of your pollution
quota. Watching TV is remarkably low on CO2 emissions.

(I'm only half tongue-in-cheek)

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waylandsmithers
I don't think there is any inherent virtue in not watching tv. People can do
what they want in their leisure time and like anything else it can be enjoyed
in moderation.

~~~
50656E6973
Is abstaining from conspicuous consumerism virtuous? If so, there is virtue to
be gained by not exposing yourself to the incessant, persuasive, and obnoxious
advertisements of television.

When I quit TV I stopped wanting/caring about having the newest/nicest model
car (among other things), and gained contentment and peace of mind as a
result.

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sudhirkhanger
TV shows, Movies, YouTube, etc. makes sense. Would you consider gaming to have
the same effect?

~~~
goda90
Gaming is such a wide range of things though. There is considerable difference
in how I use my brain for a party board game, versus a first person shooter,
versus a DnD session, versus factorio, versus a story game like The Last of
Us. Am I being social? creative? analytical? reactive? or just observing,
which is what all those other things tend to be.

~~~
sudhirkhanger
I think overall gaming has far better ROI than watching television. Of course
if done in moderation and for entertainment purposes.

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blueboo
Soon we’ll start seeing similar results about podcasts.

By and large they’re an epidemic of passive entertainment that make people
dumber (with many notable exceptions just like Tv)

~~~
djhworld
> _epidemic of passive entertainment that make people dumber_

I'd be interested in hearing some evidence about this.

~~~
misterprime
I've been listening to podcasts for about 12+ years. I doubt their effect is
much different than reading magazines. There are so many to choose from that
certainly the selection makes a significant difference in the outcome.

Certainly you can select dribble that simply enables you to parrot an opinion,
but you can also select engaging shows that promote critical thinking and/or
expand your knowledge of the world, business, and chosen skills.

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tictoc
Wish I could give up youtube.

