explorations of a geek: a blog

intentional consumption

This is a photograph of my television. You may notice the complete lack of a television in the photograph, and that’s because it doesn’t actually exist. Yes, that’s right: I don’t own a tv.

It’s not that I didn’t plan on owning a tv, it’s just that when I moved to my new place, I never got around to getting one. The longer I go without it, the less aware I am of a) it’s absence, and b) my status as a cultural minority in this regard. Being sans television in today’s world is just kind of weird, you know? And yet, most of the time I don’t think about it at all. Given my intense love of Bravo marathons, I did not expect this to happen. Don’t get me wrong – the first couple of weeks were awkward. I spent them online reading television reviews and trying to find the best deal I could, but after a while my desire started to fade. It would be nice to watch movies on a screen larger than my computer, or to play the Wii that is currently being used as a dust holder, but the cost in both time and money to get one just hasn’t been worth it yet. And, quite frankly, I just don’t miss it much.

A few days ago I started reading Clay Shirky‘s newest book Cognitive Surplus. The basic premise of the first chapter is this: 1) we as a society have a lot of time on our hands, 2) in the past we’ve mostly used it watching cable, 3) times are a-changin’.

Shirky’s theories got me thinking a lot about my own media consumption, especially given my newfound tv-free environment. Without a tv, my consumption of programming designed for tv has become intentional in a way that it never was before. If I want to watch a show, I have to turn on my computer, go to the network site or log onto Netflix, find the specific program, and wait for it to buffer (this last bit may seem like a petty addition, but I really hate waiting for things to buffer – payshuntz: i haz none). These steps, on their own, don’t take much time or effort, but they take enough time and effort that I think before I do them. Gone are they days of hitting “on” and vegging out.

This shift from passive watching to intentional watching is in keeping with the rest of my media consumption, and yet it was a surprise to discover how incongruous the old way really was. When I read books and blogs, surf the Intertubes, listen to the radio, etc., it’s always with a specific purpose in mind. I don’t just read whatever book happens to be closest to me, or log onto whatever website pops up first; the choices I make are deliberate in a way that my television watching was not. I had never before given it much thought, but the hours I spent on tv shows in the past were out of line with the way I live the rest of my life. It was often a relief to veg out, but I’ve learned that I don’t need it in the way that I thought I did. I was raised by society to believe that passive television consumption was entirely natural (and, arguably, necessary), and have come to find out that this simply isn’t true.

So what am I doing instead? It’s a question that gives me a pause, because the first answer that popped into my head was “I don’t know.” The real answer, of course, is: a little bit of everything else. I would have expected that not having a tv would be more of a dramatic change than it actually is. The truth is, it’s just not that big of a deal. I read, I write, I go to coffee with friends, I listen to music, I clean my house, I play with my cats, etc. All things I’ve always done. (And yes, sometimes I turn on my computer, log onto Netflix, find a show, and sit through the dreaded buffering.) I think part of the reason that it’s not such a big deal is precisely because it’s more in keeping with the rest of my media intake. It’s a shift from something that I didn’t even know was unnatural, to a way of interacting that makes far more sense for my lifestyle. Intentionality re: tv just fits.