When I was a little tike, my dad thought the same thing, and he introduced me to the daily newspaper. I began with the comics (minus Doonesbury because I didn’t understand the humor) and the front page. Soon I was devouring the entire first section. By the time I finished high school, my daily habit included reading most of the daily newspaper, and I believed anyone not informed on the news was an ignoramus.

Fast forward to the present day and I have since given up the news completely. Funny how things have changed.

News Makes You Negative

A few months ago, I was having a breakfast with my friend Thomas and his new girlfriend Jane. It was an awkward meal because Jane had a pretty strong personality, complained quite a bit about the restaurant, and continuously chose to talk about the news for conversation. Many of her sentences resembled in one form or another: “Did you hear about …“, “It’s so awful“, “I can’t believe…“.

Out of curiosity, I asked her, “Do you read the news often?”

Her reply was, “Yes, I love the news. It’s an addiction. Every morning I read all The Toronto Star, The National Post, and The Globe and Mail. I like to keep up to date on current events.”

Constant news exposure can invade your subconscious, resulting in you complaining more, becoming more pessimistic, and being difficult to satisfy. If your news source is a biased publications, then you’ll easily become more opinionated on a subject, feel the need to be right (and others wrong) about your views, reinforce certain beliefs, and swallow points of views verbatim, no questions asked. Seriously, when is the last time any of us have read an Afghani or Iraqi newspaper?

Negative news sells. Good news just isn’t as interesting. The incredible damage and lives lost by an earthquake isn’t as interesting as the small heroic rescue and recovery efforts by individuals. Have you ever read good news? Unless a well-known philanthropist donates an eight figure sum of money to a charity, day to day good deeds we do for each other go unnoticed compared to the isolated bad things people do – yet good things happen all the time. We see it. We live it.

In Toronto, given the relatively low crime rate, the news feeds on the next best things – traffic accidents, house fires, and of course, the “neverending” cycle of bad weather. In the winter, we have the snowstorms, freezing rain, snow shovel, and the accidents. In the summer, the news shifts almost immediately to the heat, smog, humidity, and construction traffic. The weather is as it is – it’s only bad if you let it be.

News Makes you Fearful

Nothing sells better than fear.

The news makes you afraid of things you weren’t afraid of before, like killer monkeys or dirty toilet seats. Because the news delivers a heap of tragedy around the world to your door, you get a perception that the outside world is dangerous, when really, day to day, not much happens for over 99% of the world.  I encourage you to travel and find out for yourself.

When the tsunami of 2004 hit, in the days following the disaster, “What to do in the event of a tsunami” stories plagued the media. We’re afraid of sharks because the news reports it when in fact, more people die from toilets than sharks. Don’t start eyeing your throne warily though. They’re perfectly safe. And clean.

But seriously, think about it. Even when there is no major news, there are reserve stories. Germs danger on public restaurant trays. Internet predators preying on your children. Potential flu outbreaks.

With information access at our fingertips these days, you can now look for things to be afraid of. As I left to travel around Peru last year, more than one person (who have never been there before) told me of dangers to watch out for, such as an earthquake that happened months before in a region I wasn’t visiting. Overfeeding yourself on danger reports will keep you locked up in your home.

Cruises and package vacations to Caribbean resorts make a killing because resorts offer the illusion of ultra-safety and most of all, isolation from most of the local population, who can be unpredictable. In my travels, I’ve interacted with locals on more than one occasion. I’ve even been lured away. Yikes. The results? An invitation to pray (to whatever religion or non-religion I chose) in a fantastic mosque. A memorable meal with a Peruvian family. A secret surf spot and a beach party.

News Makes You Bored

If the news isn’t particularly devastating, then it’s juicy. The personal lives of celebrities are constantly exploited in gossip tabloids, which sell better than regular newspapers. Why deal with your routine life when you can live vicariously through the scandals of other? I’m sure most celebrities live pretty normal lives, but when put under the glaring eye of the tabloids, a small blemish, a bad outfit, or some weight gain can’t escape public scrutiny. Really, it’s just normal lives re-written into epic tantalizing stories.

Boredom and fear are low frequency emotions. Because the news is so ubiquitous, it only serves to lower the collective consciousness of all people. If you suffer from some of the lowest frequency emotions such as depression or anxiety, then you definitely should avoid the news.

Fortunately, you can choose to be out of the loop. Trust me, you’ll get the news if you really need it. If it’s big or is something that impacts you, which it rarely is, you’ll either hear it from someone else or find out by your own means.

I’ve given up the news for a few years now, and it hasn’t changed much when I glance at the headlines – Turmoil in Iraq. A crime in some part of the city. A fire in some neighborhood. A corrupt politician. I’m not condoning apathety. I know some people who scan the news for , so that they can buy flowers for the victims.

Unless you plan on taking some action, then staying informed is not a good enough reason to subject yourself to such negativity. Do you really remember most of the articles you read?

Ready to give it up? Read Part 2 for more.

1. Remove the TV From Your Room

The TV really serves no purpose in your room. When I was young, sure, it was cool to have a TV in my room. Now, the concept of having a TV in my room is alien to me. The bed is reserved for sleep and sex. Anything other activities only serve as distractions that yield restless sleep, especially if you want to become an early riser.

Watching the news or a violent TV show in particular prior to sleeping will only disturb your subconscious and you’ll end up taking those images with you to sleep, whether you want to or not. If you live in a studio apartment or the like, make sure the TV isn’t facing the bed.

2. Reduce the Number of TV’s to One

When I was young, my family’s house had three TV’s, one TV short of one for every family member, and very often we’d all be separated into different rooms watching our own programs. Watching a TV program with my brother essentially separated us, as we zombified ourselves into the glowing world in front of us.

Having multiple TV’s only serve to divide up the family. Of course, the potential for conflict arises when everyone wants to watch a different program at the same time. Well, if you are reading this article and taking it to heart, I suggest you lead by example and give up your favorite programs or your “personal TV”. Try removing one TV from your house until you are down to one.

3. Cut the Time Spent Watching TV

How much do you spend a day watching TV? Tally up your favorite programs. Then tally up the other programs you let yourself drift into watching. Be honest here. Commercial time counts. Maybe you cook while watching or get some work done, but really, I’m betting it’s not that productive, or it would be much more productive minus the boob tube.

4. Simplify the Cable Package

How many channels are we up to now? Over 1000? Are we going to run into a Y2K problem where TV’s today don’t support digital channels over 4 digits? When I was at the tail end of giving up TV, all I had was an antenna, so I would get 1 channel in French, and 1 fuzzy channel I used to watch the occasional hockey game. Even then, I watched it too much and discarded the antenna. Having a plethora of high-resolution TV channels leaves one with far too many options for distraction. I’m sure you lived in an age where you had far less options and still watched too much TV, so I’m sure you’ll be able to revert to that period. I suggest going straight down from whatever you have to the basic cable package of about 10-15 channels.

5. Back Away From The TIVO

Don’t get a TIVO, or any similar personal TV recorder or TV on-demand package. It makes finding a program you can drone out to too easy. If you haven’t made the switch to digital cable, now’s the best time to give up TV. Record it old-school. Yes, with a VCR. Finding a VCR tape is half the fun. And if you have one of those VCR’s that belong in a museum, the ones that require 20 minutes and the original manual to program, even better. The more of a hassle it is to record a program, the less likely you’ll want to record it. Personal TV recorders leave too much room for straying. Don’t Download TV Shows Some shows can be watched later by streaming over the Internet, but obviously, this is the same as watching TV.

6. Don’t Turn On The TV When You Get Home

The easiest way to form a TV watching habit is to watch it once you get home from work. To the majority of us, work is uneventful, stressful, and tiring (see articles on career). We come home in a stupor from the long commute home, and trade the mindless routine of the day for the mindless routine of the evening. If you are not going to directly watch TV and use it for background noise while doing something else like cooking, try silence instead.

Cooking is actually excellent time to practice focus and being present. Having silence allows you open up your senses – listen to the water running, hear the sounds outside your home, smell the different aromas mix. Cooking is then converted from a menial task to an important time to recalibrate one’s mind.

7. Remove The TV Altogether

If you’ve followed the previous steps, you may arrive at this stage with a 52″ plasma TV and no cable package. If you have the discipline within yourself, I would strongly recommend this step over all the previous steps. It’s actually quite easy. Move it to the basement or storage, or sell it.

If you can go cold turkey right away, you might find out that it’s not that bad, so long as you find other activities to replace the gaping void. You’ll find it too much of a hassle to bring back the TV and set up cable, and if you do bring it back, at least you’ll consciously know that you’re breaking the habit.

8. Try Reading

Ah, reading. The long lost art. I know many people who haven’t picked up a book since high school. Replacing a bad habit with a good habit is much easier than just trying to eliminate a bad habit cold-turkey style. Avoid reading the news though. Instead, start with some fiction, but eventually, move to personal development books that make you think or help you grow.

Give yourself 30 days to materialize the habit. Try extending it to 60 days, after which you may choose to have it around to watch an occasional movie at home (try to keep it at one or two a month), a fitness video, or something beneficial to your personal development.

To avoid pitfalls or periods where boredom may takeover, put colored tape over your remote to further remind you to stick with your new habits.

If you used to watch 1 hour of TV a day, you now have 7 hours a week free to do something else. If you, like the average adults out there, watched 4 hours a day, you now have a staggering 28 hours freed up. For many, this enormous shift in free time may cause the mind to become extremely bored with real life, as that is its tendency, and it may seek other unproductive distractions.

I have many suggestions here. Take your pick: join a social sports league, take up a dance class, learn a language, read personal development books, write your goals, spend time with your family, meditate, paint, sing, take up photography, start a business.

The possibilities are endless.

TV In Our Culture

Somehow, our culture has evolved so that the main room in the house is the entertainment room (aka The Living Space Formely Known as The Family Room). Rather than being a room where people can sit face to face and talk, all chairs and sitting furniture are oriented to face glowing plasma pixels.

And what an entertainment room it has become – the epitome of grandeur and success for many (especially single guys). Movie theatre digital sound system. Piles of remote controls – or the one universal remote to rule them all. Gaming consoles stacked one upon each other. Everything we need to become disconnected from the real world.

I’m sure you know someone who has a TV in every room of the house, and perhaps even know someone who has a TV in the bathroom, for distraction from those precious moments .

What would a room be without a TV? It would be such a boring place, right? It would require people to sit together, face each other, and have conversations about life outside the box. It’s hard when there are a lot of great dramas out there, but living vicariously through the lives of onscreen characters only serves to weaken your sense of reality.

Many of us don’t realize how much time we spend in front of the television. If you haven’t heard already, the average pre-schooler watches more TV than he/she spends in school. Are your kids watching too much TV? Of course, you have to lead by example and cut the habit yourself! I used to be one of those kids who alternated for hours after school between TV shows and Nintendo. I could recite all the toy commercials and cartoon opening theme songs better than anything else I learned.

Information Programming?

News doesn’t count though, right? Au contraire – news and reality TV showcasing the worst of people are the most addictive mediums TV shows present themselves in. Go on a news fast, you’ll realize how little you need it.

What about educational programming? The Discovery Channel was on at my cousin’s house last week, and the prime-time programs included fear-mongering plane crashes and storm disasters. And if you flip on the TV just to drone yourself out to educate yourself the mating rituals of flightless birds, you may be deluding yourself.

If you really want to learn, practice focus on something you have a genuine interest in. Spend the time learning in-depth something you can develop into a real competency or skill, such as a foreign language or Chinese history.

Sometimes, there might be a show of relevant interest to you – such as a travel show to a country you’re planning a visit to or if you want to learn to cook a certain food. Just make sure you’re actively watching, learning, and not allowing yourself to watch the next irrelevant show. Sure, TV can have some useful and creative programming, but there’s so much junk on the small screen that it’s better to seek out alternative resources than sift through the garbage.

My friends recommended a dance competition show because they know I love to dance. It was pretty interesting, but rather than watch an entire season’s worth of shows, I just joined a hip hop class and bought some of the choreographer’s instructional videos.

Beyond TV

Often times, we don’t really want to watch TV, but just seem to have it on or drone out mindlessly with it on after a hard day of work. You’ll be surprised at the number of hours you passively log this way.

It’s just a bad habit, and with conscious action, it can be replaced. For a while, your old TV habits may creep up here and there. However, when you’ve stayed off the TV for a long enough time, and you’ve replaced it with better activities, you’ll surprisingly discover that you have no interest in sitting down and droning out.

Ready to give up the boob tube? Click here for tips on giving up TV.