The easiest way to ruin your life :)

Turn on, and leave on, the TV.

Having a TV perpetually playing in the background of a household is so common now that advocating anything else sounds crazy. Nonetheless, I feel strongly about this. There are two reasons that TV will ruin our lives.

Firstly, how much TV consumption is a healthy amount? The answer is: not much. Leaving the TV constantly on is similar to eating ice cream––or any other nutrition-less food––several times a day. I love desert too, but it has nearly zero positive impact on our lives.

TV is easier to watch than it is to be bored; this technology is literally stealing our thoughts instead of letting them flow. Are our lives really better thinking less? We are our thoughts and are turning ourselves off when watching TV or any form of entertainment.

Maybe if it is just background noise, we are still having some of ourselves slip through the clatter, but still, some amount of us is being suppressed by the sweet taste of crowding our mind with noise. That being said, I do watch TV for an hour to two hours a day.

Secondly, how is this constant thought repression affecting other people? Unless you are a seriously considerate person that watches TV with earbuds in, the noisy, ice-cream-like brain killer is reverberating all throughout your house. Imagine your family all has to take a bite of ice-cream every single time you eat a whole cone; depending on your consumption, this could really add up and hurt their health. At least with quiet social media addiction, it isn't bleeding into the lives of those around us.

Let's assume your family is particularly mentally strong and your noise doesn't affect them. Still, this leads to problems. I can't connect with someone watching TV. Their attention is fluttering back and fourth between me and the TV; the depth of connection feels shallow. Eventually the sound of the TV starts getting to me, and since I don't feel like this time is strengthening the relationship, I leave. If this happens often enough, the nutritious meaningful conversation this person and I are supposed to be having dwindles along with our relationship.

Leaving the TV on for an extended period of time is hurting you and your relationships. I believe that; though, I understand how this could feel farfetched. My house won't have a TV in it. It also won't have ice cream. If it did, I'd eat it.