About a year ago, our TV was busted. The vertical scanner chip failed. All we could see was a bright horizontal line. Experimenting with repair was going to be futile as it was already about 7 years old and the chips would be obsolete by now. So, we experimented with life without a TV.
It was odd for a couple of days without the familiar TV babble. Then as we got the books from the library to fill our time, we completely forgot about it. Someone asked us how we would get the news or watch a movie. The solution is simple: laptop and the Internet. With TV, our choices were limited and it was like force feeding (CNN repeats the same biased news every half hour). Now we get to see, hear and read what we want and when we want. Internet is a huge resource of independent journalists and movie makers. The local library has vast collection of books, DVDs and documentaries to fill all our time and brain. I tune to NPR occasionally. I guess the only thing I miss is seeing/knowing about a snow storm that occurred 2000 mile away from my home.
It has been over a year and we don't miss the TV. We might get one when our parents visit us for extended period of time and they demand for one.
This experiment is a success.
(2 years later)
In retrospect, it still seems good not to have the TV. Reading about research on child development, avoiding TV during the first 3 years of the child's life seems to help reduce the incidence of addition deficit disorders.
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