There are a number of reasons we did this. First of all, it is economically duplicative. Between Hulu, Netflix, the local library, and other internet sources, broadcast TV is largely reproducible. The other reason is the first.
The explanation of this incongruity is found in the reasons we watch TV. For Jen and me, broadcast TV serves three very specific purposes. First, it provides local information via newscasts including weather information. Second, it allows us to watch the one series TV show we follow (that's a partial tease; that show is likely a near-future blog subject). Finally, it provides a source of distraction.
The last is the largest reason we shut it down. Easy distraction is one of my nemisiseseses (as Dwight Schrute would say) and that thing directly addressed during Lent. I guess this is one of those cut-off-the-hand-that causes- you -to-sin sort of things.
Regarding our followed TV show, Hulu has it the next morning with fewer commercials and the ability to watch on our schedule. And, since early morning tends to include some stupor and coffee filled time anyway, why not watch it then as opposed to the more usable time of the evening?
Local news is quite similar. I can get any of the local TV channel's information from their respective websites. In addition, I remember my Dad telling me something years ago which just stuck. I asked how he kept his desk so clean and he told me that each day presented more new issues than that to which he could reasonably respond. He went on to explain that he had developed both the sense and the habit to know which requests where legitimate and those which were merely the output of someone's angst de jour. Those which appeared to be of the latter sort were set aside for a deliberate period of time. If the issue never surfaced again, the matter was discarded. If it came back, which rarely happened, it was dealt with at that time. I want to remember that he estimated that over 1/4 of the stuff that crossed his desk went into that file set for non-legitimate issues.
I think that a lot of our news, especially in this 24 hour news cycle world, fits this quality. It may seem important at the moment but, when viewed from a historical perspective of even a few days, it is shown as more gossip than anything else. In any case, missing the news for a few days is an effective filter since anything worth knowing will be still around a few days from now. So, for me, I find that the lack of news both morning and night is actually giving me a more balanced overview. And I love following the news ...
Our experiment (for such it is) of dropping TV reminds me a little of the movie Overboard. In it, a rich brat of a woman, via the movie magic of amnesia, ends up spending 3 months or so living and believing that she is the wife of a working class construction dude with 3 kids. After she regains her memory and social position, her butler counsels her by pointing out that she has been given the rare gift of having truly experienced two dramatically different lives. What she does with that knowledge is her choice.
I don't know what I'll do long term. It would be hard to miss the Packer's games in the fall. And the winter evenings are a lot longer than the spring and summer. And I truly like to watch TV. But my real point here is to encourage you to not just think about things and imagine things (which is already far more preferable than just existing in default mode), but to actually effect a change and live there for a while. Experiential knowledge is far more real than intellectual investigation by itself. And I am not talking about TV, but about everything. Shake it up. Try something different. Take something on. Give something up. Most of the things we use to fill our lives are easily obtained and removed. You have little to lose. Experience the change. Then decide how to live. No rules, no guilt, and no one looking over your shoulder. Claim your life for yourself.
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