Stimulating Conversation

by Mandy Weger on August 16, 2011

One of my favey-fave blogs, The Daybook just wrote a post about taking the television out of their living space and centering their evenings around conversation and time spent together. At first, I really LOVED this idea. It made me think about how we often measure the time in our evenings by Anthony Bourdain episodes.

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When our DVR is dangerously tipping to 98% full, we feel like we have to have a Bourdain-a-thon to get the space back down to a level that can fit more Bourdain episodes.

Writing this down makes us sound insane. We’re really not. We also DVR House Hunters International.

I’d say we watch TV 5 or 6 days a week in the evenings, usually for about 2 hours. Mike watches TV when he works out in the morning, but I prefer quiet mornings without noise or distractions (from my computer, at least).

A lot of people will say that they either LOVE tv or that they “never watch tv” but I think we fall somewhere in the middle. I think that we try to watch shows that teach us something about the world or about food…but when the fall season starts back up, we’re all about Glee and Fringe, too. I see television as a way to connect with my husband over our shared interests–we genuinely enjoy watching these shows, discussing them and debating how we’d DIE to go wherever Tony went, or the fact that the parents of the Glee kids are NEVER around, or just how amazing of a show Fringe is and how it always seems to take us by surprise.

I think television brings about a lot of conversation in our household. It’s a great way to blow off steam, but we try to watch just the shows that interest us, make us laugh, and provoke conversation. We did catch an episode of the Kardashians once, and that provoked quite a lot of conversation too, but more of the “how in the world are these people famous” type conversation. (PS–how does Mike know more about the Kardashians than I do? Is it because they’re dating/married to sports stars?)

We also usually watch tv together as an activity, instead of one person watching a show they like while the other person is doing something else around the house. It makes it feel more like something we do together than something we just do.

So I don’t think that we’ll be taking our television out any time soon. We enjoy it, and while we could probably cut back in places, I don’t think we watch too much of it, and when we do watch, it only adds to the conversations around the house, instead of detracting from them. It’s also inspired us to go new places and try new things, so it can’t be all that bad, can it?

How about you? Are you a TV junkie? Hate TV? Does it stimulate conversation or hurt it in your household?

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  • http://allieseverydayadventures.blogspot.com/ Allie

    I wouldn’t call myself a junkie, but I do love a lot of different TV shows. For the most part, Matt and I watch stuff together like Top Chef, Amazing Race, How I Met Your Mother — like ya’ll, we enjoy the bonding time of talking about stuff on those shows. I do leave my fluff shows for when he’s at work though, I don’t want to hear him whine about having to watch the Kardashians!

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  • http://twitter.com/LazyKitchenette The Lazy Gourmet

    We watch a lot of tv together. Like a lot. And I use the word “watch” loosely because we usually talk through the whole thing.  It just goes on in the background.  We always watch together unless my sister and I insist on watching Toddlers in Tiara’s or the NJ Housewives, in which case Chris will either cringe through it, make himself busy, or go play video games.  He doesn’t understand the irony with which we watch these shows.  lol

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  • http://www.nodakademic.com/ Nodakademic

    We removed our TV from our lives, pretty much. We own two of them, and used to have one in the bedroom and another in the living area. When we moved to our second apartment together, we never signed up for cable and found that we really didn’t miss it (and we loved the spare time we had without feeling obligated to watch shows, or skipping ‘to do list’ items because we got sucked in to something on the tube). Then when we moved to our house, there was actually no good place for a TV in the living room. So we put it in the basement. It gets no reception at ALL down there and all we do on it is watch the occasional movie. Our other TV is in the extra bedroom, collecting dust. I very occasionally use it for Jillian or Wii Fit, but like the other one it gets no reception. I used to think that after we finish school, we’d get cable back (more time to just chill). But now, I’m not so sure. I really don’t miss it. I have no idea what’s on and that’s fine with me, at least for now.

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  • Creen14

    We love the house hunter shows as well: Property Virgins, House Hunters, House Hunters International.  We also love Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives and the morning news. Of course, I have my shows that I like to watch such as America’s Next Top Model and Teen Mom.  DH has his sports.
    I would say I watch maybe 1.5 hours a day.

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  • Amanda Vaughn

    We go through phases. For example, we recently decided to watch Prison Break and watched episode after episode for hours on end. It was fun in its own right, but then this Friday night we stayed in, opened a bottle of wine, put on some music, and talked the night away. It was SO WONDERFUL.

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  • http://twitter.com/kim_michelle kimberly michelle

    We are total TV/DVR junkies. We even have an extra hard drive attached to ours! But… we usually try to keep it clean, so I’m not sure why we have the extra space. 

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  • Anonymous

    I admit we do watch our fair share of tv.  We have a mix of shows that we like and it is something that we enjoy to do together (when we can).  We’ve been hooked on some different networks lately (Food and HGTV) and my husband just located a place he wants to eat at on our next trip because he saw it on tv.

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  • http://twitter.com/loverenovations Amanda

    We definitely enjoy our TV and watch a lot of it together, but we do a lot of talking about it like you do too. We love our TV and I don’t think we’d be very happy without it, haha. And Audrey always says that her husband knows more about the Kardashians than she does too! Funny – it has to be because of the sports guys!

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  • Bonnie

    We call ourselves “active” TV watchers. Like you, we find that it stimulates, rather than stifles our conversation. In the beginning we felt guilty about how much we watch tv, until we realised that it helped us relax and unwind in the evenings together, and we decided that feeling guilty was lame.

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  • http://www.therecomesayes.com colleen

    We got rid of our cable this summer and it made us better about tv. We still watch it (via Netflix and downloads), it’s just not a mindless thing like we would get with HGTV. Now we only watch what we intend to, not just what’s on. 

    As far as conversation, we just finished Lost and that only made us talk about what a whiner kate was and how jack was exhausting and why can’t this just be a sawyer comedy hour..

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  • Brooke @ Claremont Road

    I’m coming out of comment hiding to say it was great to see you tonight! :)

    Also — we are totally TV junkies. And I’m okay with that. We have shows we enjoy watching together, and some that are individual guilty pleasures (for example, Nick watches tv in the bedroom when I’m hogging the living room tv watching SYTYCD or Pretty Little Liars). Some shows are interesting and educational, and some are total fluff, but we both work hard all day and get enjoyment out of relaxing in front of the tv when we can.

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  • Anonymous

    We aren’t TV people too much. We watch House together, and Doctor Who and Torchwood. I watch Glee on my own, and Top Chef Canada when it was on. Those are our only regular ‘stories’. And like you, I find that House, DW and Torchwood all make us talk about the shows together after (especially DW and Torchwood!). On the weekends I might get sucked into an Iron Chef marathon, but not too often.
    I am adamant that I never want a TV in the bedroom though. I want my bedroom to be quiet and relaxing and free from screens. (Sometimes, if I feel we’ve been too plugged in, I tell P ‘No more screens today!’ and then we go do something screenless together for a while).

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  • Sara

    Watching shows together is one of our favorite things to do. We’ve been trying to spend less money eating out and grabbing drinks so we’ve gotten very into Netflix streaming shows like Dexter and Mad Men. I’d say we watch 1-2 hours each week night of a show we both enjoy. On a Saturday night, we make dinner and eat 7ish, talk for a bit and throw on a few back-t0-back episodes of shows.

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