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I am not a big consumer of television programming. Neither is Tina Su, and here is why:

Here are some effects of TV watching based on my experience:

• Mental Clutter - Most things on TV are useless and uninspiring. We are drawn to them to satisfy our curiosity and fear of being alone without things to do. It almost gives us a sense of temporary purpose and a great way to kill time. Most simply becomes unnecessary noise that clutters my mind and inner space.
• Mentally Draining - I feel tired and drained. Literally, after staring at the screen passively, my head is numb and I feel sleepy. This is because our brains are actively working to process the highly visual and auditory information, even though we are sitting there passively receiving the information.
• Highly Addictive - I want to watch more. After watching the show we’ve planned to watch, what do we do afterwards? The natural tendency is to click around and see what else is on. It’s not unusual to set out wanting to watch one show and ending up watching several more hours of unplanned TV ‘action’.
• Time Consuming - Due to its addictive qualities, it has the tendency to suck your time. You are not able to do other things more empowering or beneficial.
• Feeling Crappy - I never feel good about myself after I finally pry my eyes from the TV set. With the exception of some documentaries and shows, most shows don’t leave you empowered or inspired.
• Procrastination - You get drawn in. You get distracted and delay your tasks. You encourage yourself to procrastinate. I noticed this tendency in myself, as I am procrastinating to complete this blog post.
• Kills Imagination - I remember reading a study several years ago on child development and imagination. They concluded that reading tends to stimulate imagination, and extensive TV watching suppresses imagination. When we are watching TV, we are passively receiving and processing visual information, and little imagination is required. Whereas when reading, you are actively reading words and then converting them into visual information or meaning.
• Bad Posture - It’s easy to slide down into couch when we relax. When we are absorbed by a riveting show, we tend to disregard any physical sensation and rest in the same position. This can’t possibly be conducive for our physical health. On my flight home from my holiday, I could barely sit up because of pain in my lower back.
• Guilt - Naturally, we feel guilty when we haven’t accomplished what we’ve set out to do. Once you realize that you are no further ahead than you were when you started, your conscience jumps on you.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Grab a book instead.

If you can’t think of anything to read, check out these suggestions.

Not into reading? Nneka at the Balanced Life Center has some other recommendations!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6ytddc. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen