Breaking a TV Habit and Waking Up to Real Life

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“Why does death so catch us by surprise? And why love? We still and always want waking. We should amass half-dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other to wake up. Instead, we watch television and miss the show.”

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I searched around for a word other than television. Can I call what I’m doing “watching television” when a television isn’t involved? Rather than type “Binging Netflix on my iPhone” over and over, I’ll just refer to “tv” and trust you know what I mean.

A few years ago, I was talking to my brother on the phone when our chatter turned to the topic of tv shows. I paced my living room listening to his recommendations and sharing mine. As I heard myself go down a list of shows I’d watched over the past few weeks, I was forced to face the truth—I was having a full-on love affair with Netflix.

I loved television. I loved the way the stories sucked me in and held my attention.

TV-watching seemed like one of the only always-available methods of calming the busy bees in my head.

Beautiful images, swelling music, and dramatic tipping points pulled at my emotions. I discovered, to my delight, that when I watched tv my mind held no extra space for thoughts and emotions about my own life. 

As I turned up the volume to catch every word exchanged between tv show characters, I was turning down the volume on my own life.

I still love a good story, and I haven’t sworn off tv completely, but as time marched on, I began to spot the ways in which my tv habit was becoming a problem.

"As I turned up the volume to catch every word exchanged between tv show characters, I was turning down the volume on my own life." #tvhabit #wakeup #reallife Breaking a TV Habit and Waking Up to Real Life Share on X

Can You Relate?

Today you might be wondering if you need to eliminate a habit from your life. Maybe, like me, it’s tv. For others, it might be Instagram, online shopping, or another go-to behavior that tries to expand into every nook and cranny of your free time. 

Around the same time as the confessional chat with my brother, I googled “how to break a tv addiction,” and came up with nothing remotely helpful. Google failed me. 

Today, I googled the same phrase and noticed the top four articles were written within the last year. It’s probably not a coincidence that we’re all thinking more about the topic after a year spent trapped indoors.

Maybe you noticed how I snuck the word “addiction” in there. We were humming along talking about a bad habit when I pulled out that word. Am I being melodramatic to call it an addiction? Maybe. But what other word can I use to describe a negative influence, one that I tried to pry myself away from but ended up returning to with a self-promise that goes something like, “Just thirty minutes and I’ll turn it off. Swear.”

The good news is, there are answers to our questions. Why does tv consumption matter anyway? How do I know if I need to cut back? And what’s the alternative when I’m in need of rest and relaxation after a long, hard day (or morning)?

Two Reasons Why Media Intake Matters

1. We Want to Steward Our Time Well

You know those people who seem like superheroes? The homeschooling mom with six children who runs her own business and manages to make meals from scratch most evenings? Or the ladder-climbing businessman whose side hobby is acquiring graduate degrees?

I’ve listened to interviews with the dream-chasers, the productive, and the hard-working. When asked how they find the time, they almost always utter the words, “Well, I’ve cut out television completely.”

“That’s great for them,” I would think, “but I can’t imagine my days without a tv-induced brain break.”

Last summer, I began conducting research for an article I was writing about how we can steward our time well. As I crafted a message for readers about the importance of time management I realized I was writing the words I needed to hear.

I wrote, “I am reevaluating the idea that I am only accountable for my time when another person is watching me or relying on me to be productive. God is gently leading me to see I’m accountable to Him for my time because He is the giver of time and has entrusted me with this resource.” (The Joyful Life Magazine, Issue 08, Fall 2020).

2. We Want Our Thoughts and Minds to Glorify God

On muggy summer days, I’ve tried pointing out what a mosquito looks like to my five-year-old daughter. It’s quick and small, and before she can focus her attention or eyes, the pest is gone. I showed her a picture, but she still doesn’t see them when we’re outside. 

Kids are busy playing and exploring, too consumed with life around them  to slow down for a tiny blood-sucker. I remember that experience from my own childhood. Even though I never noticed a mosquito on my skin, I’d still come inside covered in itchy welts. 

I couldn’t see the cause, but I definitely felt the results.

My youth pastor used to repeat that age-old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out,” as he encouraged us to consider our music and movie choices. 

Mosquitos and media intake—these are some of the things kids have to take at the word of an adult. 

Even into my twenties, I couldn’t follow the path from inappropriate content consumption to feelings of lethargy or melancholy. What did a Friday night tv binge have to do with the way I woke up feeling on a Saturday morning? Nothing—or so I thought at the time.

Now, I see the connection clearly. Humming the chorus of a song I heard in the car and casting over the plot line of that newest Netflix show, I see how the tentacles of what I consume in the present bury down into my subconscious thinking and affect my future thoughts.

In The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield writes, “Life is compost…. All my life and all my experience, the events that have befallen me, the people I have known, all my memories, dreams, fantasies, everything I have ever read, all of that has been chucked onto the compost heap, where over time it had rotted down to a dark, rich, organic mulch. The process of cellular breakdown makes it unrecognizable. Other people call it the imagination. I think of it as a compost heap.” 

I’d add to her list of life experiences that social media and television become part of the compost heap too. The “unrecognizable” nature of the matter making up our thought lives means we may struggle to pull a thread and cleanly follow it to discover where our moods, intrusive thoughts, and worldviews originate. 

The Bible tells us we are responsible for our thoughts—whether we honor or dishonor God with them. We are told to take them captive in obedience to Christ and to think on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (2 Corinthians 10:5, Philippians 4:8). 

Why not set ourselves up for success and heap redemptive stories, uplifting music, and Scripture onto the compost heap of our minds when we know they can and do impact our daily lives and spill out to affect the lives of those around us?

Moderation in All Things, Except…

In other areas of life, I’m a big proponent of the “moderation in all things” strategy. A square of chocolate here. A splurge on a fancy, yummy-smelling candle there. I workout some, but not to the point of obsession. I have a glass of wine one or two nights a week. Moderation works for me in most areas of life.

That’s why I had a hard time believing that my relationship with tv could possibly be considered an “all or nothing” situation. 

If I can enforce moderation in other parts of my life, then why not with these shows? 

Surely if I tried harder, prayed for more self-control, and got more sleep at night to boost my resolve, I’d be back to a moderate intake of the latest drama series.

This is what I noticed. I’d make an internal bargain with myself. “One thirty-minute episode.”  Then, the credits would roll and I’d stay glued to my chair. “I can’t walk away on a cliff-hanger! Just five more minutes of the next episode.”

Later in the day, I’d try to watch a show on my phone while making dinner which meant it took 2.5 times longer to cook than it would have otherwise. 

If I found a spare minute when the kids were occupied, I’d pull up a show. If someone in my family spoke to me, I’d pause, pull out an earbud, respond, pop the earbud in, unpause. Sometimes this little routine would happen five times within ten minutes and instead of turning it off, I’d find myself annoyed by the interruptions.

I was trying to escape into fictional worlds and when denied the numbing opportunity, I became grumpy and sullen. 

I knew this pattern wasn’t okay. God created me to live in a real world, not a fake one.

Waking Up

When I began going to war against my craving for media, I would talk to myself. I would say, “Self, you have to live your actual life. It’s time to live your actual life.”

The trouble is we’ve been taught that fake life is better than real life.

A funny meme more pleasurable than the warm, spring sun.

A drama between long-lost acquaintances, as documented by Facebook, more thrilling than the stillness of a weekday afternoon.

The romantic flare-up between television characters more enthralling than the pair of eyes we meet at the dinner table.

One life is real and one is not, and the simplicity of real life will always hold more mystery and depth than the empty promises of what is fabricated behind screens. Simply because it is, in fact, real.

There’s a spot in my backyard. It’s next to the stone wall that works tirelessly to hold back the ridge rising behind it.

Standing in that spot, heavy branches with fluttering green leaves bow and lift in front of me. I see our shed across the yard. The shed is my destination as I walk through this spot.

I walk and feel the mossy patches, soft, beneath my bare feet. I feel the wind wrap around my body. The sun winks at me from his cloudy kingdom.

I often stop and close my eyes in this spot. Will I remember this when I’m eighty? Can I imprint these sounds, feelings, and sensations on my body so that they are never lost in the dizzying labyrinth of long-term memory?

Real life isn’t accompanied by intro music. There are no hair or makeup artists hanging around to ensure each moment looks picture perfect. But it doesn’t mean the ordinary things of real life aren’t worthy of our attention and admiration.

Building a Life, One Day at a Time

We started with an Annie Dillard quote, so we’ll end with one too.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

At the beginning of this post, I raised the question of how to find an alternative way to rest and relax rather than turning on tv shows. In my next post, I’ll be sharing how I kicked the tv habit and what a rhythm of rest and renewal can look like without tv. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss it. 

Until then, I have a gift for you! My free guide, “Fighting for Soul Care: A Faith-Based Approach to Creating Space for Your Mind and Soul” identifies common unhelpful habits we turn to in times of boredom, stress, or exhaustion. And it will give you ideas for what to do instead. All you have to do is scroll down, click the image, and follow the instructions.

I hope that today, right now even, you’ll make some space to consider your daily habits.

May we quiet the noise to hear the Holy Spirit’s prompting. And may we craft our days so that they add up to a well-lived life that glorifies God.

Talk to me in the comments! Do you struggle with a bad habit that takes up more time and space than you like? I’ve shared some reasons why the pull of tv is so strong—have you experienced something similar?

*Featured photo by Francisco Andreotti on Unsplash