Television is the default distraction device in the Baldwin household.
Our watching habits have changed over the years but it’s still the go-to activity when we need a break from the daily grind. This is why we decided to embark on this 30 day challenge.
We mostly consume TV series from different streaming platforms. We don’t have cable or satellite, or whatever non-streaming network providers are available these days. We also don’t watch the news and we don’t surf the channels looking for something that’s worth our attention.
The way that we consume television has changed immensely since I was a kid. I remember when we would have to memorize the time slots when our favorite shows would play so that we could tune in at the right time to catch the weekly episode. Running to the kitchen to get snacks during one of many commercial breaks. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that microwave popcorn takes about the same time as the standard network TV commercial break. I think not.
We have gotten much more efficient with our media consumption. Thanks to streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video and Crave, we can now consume a year’s worth of TV in a single weekend. This is great, but it’s also part of the problem. With this infinite supply of good content, it’s so easy to get locked into a series and spend an unhealthy amount of time on the couch. Entertained but not fulfilled.
The Why
Before embarking on this 30 day challenge, I estimate that Mrs. Baldwin and I watched around 1-2 hours of TV per day on weekdays and 3-6 hours of TV over the weekend.
This seems like a lot, but when you break it down it’s easy to see how we reach 15 hours of TV per week.
Catch an episode of something each day over lunch while working from home and a second one after dinner. Swap the second episode for a movie on Friday and Saturday and you’re pretty much at 15 hours.
This number is actually quite moderate. According to A.C Neilsen Co., the average American watches more than 28 hours of TV per week. That is the equivalent of 2 months per year of non-stop screen time.
The sheer volume of TV that we consume isn’t the primary reason that led us to this 30 day no TV challenge. I value downtime and recreation, I am not someone who believes that we all need to be productive 100% of the time. I do however believe that there are different levels of quality when it comes to relaxing activities.
The thing that really pushed me toward this challenge is how automatic and instinctual reaching for the remote has become.
Not sure what to do in this moment? Let’s watch something fun.
Had a bad day at work? Let’s finish that season.
Had a good day at work? Great! Let’s celebrate and watch a movie tonight. No chores!
This was amplified by the strict pandemic restrictions in our part of the world. The default date night is now takeout and a movie.
The main objective of this challenge was to break this automatic cycle. Remove the instinctive pull to the great screen on the wall and become more intentional with our downtime.
The rules going in were simple:
- The TV is to remain off for 30 days.
- No streaming services or movies whatsoever.
- YouTube is allowed in limited quantities for research or educational purposes.
Nice and simple. Seemed real easy, until the struggle came and revealed that we are more hooked to the TV than we thought.
The Struggle
The first few evenings without screen time were mildly unsettling.
As we sat together in the living room, chatting about everything and nothing, playing indoor fetch with the dog, I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. I even told Mrs. Baldwin “I can’t just sit here each night and chat. I need to do something with this free time. I should be reading or writing or something.”
I mean, what kind of psychopaths sit in their living room and talk to each other each night, without distractions?
The silly thing about that statement was that I usually wasn’t doing anything useful during that time of day in the first place. It was usually spent watching TV, or scrolling social media with the TV on, depending on how good the show was.
TV gave us a false sense of productivity. I didn’t sit on the couch doing nothing all day. I sat on the couch and watched three movies. It feels like slightly more of an accomplishment than sitting around chatting.
That restless feeling faded after 3-4 days. It turns out that we did spend at least 30 minutes to an hour each night sitting around the fireplace talking to each other and playing with the dog. To my own surprise, I began to look forward to it. It was one of the best parts of the whole experiment.
The biggest struggle came during the first weekend of the challenge. We were having a bad day. I won’t get into the details of it, but it was just a miserable day. Life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies, it’s normal to have some struggle.
This particular shitty day, in the middle of this challenge, taught us a profound lesson about our relationship with TV.
We used this hard time to convince ourselves that we needed a hall pass from the rules of the challenge for one night. We were in a rut and couldn’t really focus on doing anything productive. We needed to snap out of it, we told ourselves. We could have decided that we needed to go outside for a long walk, or that doing something productive around the house would help. No, at that moment, we decided that what we needed most of all was to watch movies all afternoon. The distraction device won.
Lesson 1: Be Kind To Yourself
To be honest, it did feel good to hold each other and take it easy in front of the TV.
It did help to snap out of the negative loop we were caught in. Was it the only way though? Would we have felt even better if we went outside for a long walk? We’ll have to try it out during our next crisis, which hopefully is far away.
It would have been easy to quit the challenge after this relapse. We did, in fact, fail.
We decided instead to revise the rules of the challenge so that we could keep going. Our goal wasn’t strictly to have a 30 day streak without television. The goal all along had been to become more intentional with our downtime and re-evaluate our relationship with TV. We had already learned some valuable lessons after 1 week and didn’t want to throw in the towel just yet. We decided to move forward with the challenge while allowing for one night per week of TV on Sundays as a compromise.
This decision turned out to be the biggest lesson learned.
Sometimes we set very rigid rules when trying new things or challenges, only to quit as soon as there is a small slipup. This failure in the first week reminded us that we take on 30 day challenges because we want to learn something. If it wasn’t hard it wouldn’t be a challenge.
By being kind to ourselves and allowing for a little bit of leeway in the rules that we set, we were able to learn from the failure and keep going.
Lesson 2: Sitting Together ≠ Quality Time Together
Mrs. Baldwin and I have been working from home together for the past 2 years. During the pandemic, we technically spent most of our waking hours together. Our home office setups are in separate rooms, but we still interact quite a bit during the workday.
Just like there are different qualities of downtime activities, not all time spent with someone is quality time.
After the initial discomfort of removing TV from our evening routine, we started appreciating the one-on-one time. Sitting at the dinner table each night for our evening meal instead of eating in front of the TV is the best example. It felt like a satisfying exhale at the end of a stressful day, releasing the accumulated tension brought on by our jobs.
This time at the dinner table also allowed us to know where the other’s head is at going into the evening. It is easy to let things brew in your head while watching a movie. Given enough silence though, those thoughts will come out.
The rest of the evening’s conversation naturally converged towards more creative discussions about the dreams we have for our family, the improvements we want to do to our old house or interesting things we’ve read or listened to that we can apply to our lives.
It may seem silly, but this challenge also gave me more quality time with my dog. Kady is old and grey now. She still has tons of energy when you get her riled up but she is quite happy being a couch potato. It’s funny how much dogs tune in to our energy. When we sit in front of the TV, Kady joins us on the couch and snoozes through the evening. Each night that Mrs. Baldwin and I sat down to chat, Kady found a toy and nudged us to play with her for the duration of our conversation. Turns out our TV consumption also affects our pets.
Lesson 3: Less input is more restful
Prior to this experiment, I believed that watching a good series or movie was an important part of unwinding. That having an entertaining distraction from the ups and downs of the daily grind would help to stop my mind from buzzing.
The truth is, I’ve found myself more rested without it. As an engineer, I spend my day in front of the computer doing focused work or participating in countless Teams meetings. I usually watch YouTube or scroll social media when I take a break from work. I watch something while doing a spinning workout or listen to a podcast or audiobook while running. The majority of my days are constituted of some form or another of digital input.
Creating space at different moments in the day without input is a much-needed break from stimulation. Having conversations with family members, going for a walk or playing with a dog is much more soothing than watching TV.
This break from stimulation has another happy side effect: It helps with sleep. I’ve found that I fell asleep faster and woke up more rested when not watching TV before bed.
The Takeaway
This simple challenge was more difficult than I had expected but it was well worth it for the lessons that were learned along the way.
So, what did I learn?
I didn’t get twice as much done during these 30 days than I normally do.
I didn’t knock all the items on my outstanding to-do list.
What I learned is how to unwind without distraction.
I was quite surprised to realize how much space TV had in our household’s routine until it was removed from it completely.
Will I quit TV forever? Probably not.
I enjoy a good story. Be it a novel, a great TV series or a movie. I like getting lost in it. I consider good storytelling and beautiful imagery an artform worth enjoying.
It is possible to have too much of a good thing though.
The past 30 days have made me realize how instinctual and automatic our TV habit had become. Any time that was not spent doing something productive was spent in front of the TV. I want to watch something because I enjoy it and am genuinely interested.
By maintaining more rules and structure around how we consume media after this experiment, we will be forced to be more intentional about when and what we watch.
For now, that looks like always eating meals at the dinner table and reserving Sunday evenings as TV/movie nights.
I’m glad that this challenge showed me how to enjoy quiet evenings at home by spending quality downtime with my wife and my dog. I will not give those up for compulsive TV watching any time soon.