Cruel and unusual punishment: a week without TV

For my social experiment, because apparently I am a masochist, I chose to watch no television for an entire week. I know not why I subjected myself to this, but at least it was entertaining for my friends as I slowly but surely went insane.

No TV meant no movies, YouTube or TV shows. I could not click on a video shared by a friend on Facebook, or watch the viral video everyone would be talking about.

In the beginning, the lack of TV wasn’t so bad as the apprehension: What would I do to occupy my time? How would I deal with scheming friends determined to ruin my week with spoilers?

And following days of monotony, I began to despair. The boredom! The math! The lack of anything interesting! Every day, I had hours of homework to complete, uninterrupted by guilty-pleasure TV shows like “The Lying Game.”

The experience was made even worse because of my friends, who I knew were determined to ruin my days with spoilers.

The lack of TV not only affected my days, but it affected my nights as well. One night, I had a dream I was watching a TV show. When the show ended, I got mad at myself because I’d ruined the social experiment. I woke up disappointed. But I had been screen-free after all.

It’s strange how a simple thing like watching no TV affected me. Time seemed to go a bit slower, and I got home every day feeling sad because I knew I couldn’t watch TV to relax in the evening.

I missed TV the most when I wanted to watch amazing videos on YouTube with my friends. I was so sad that I couldn’t join in their joy during Media Arts class as they watched trailers for upcoming horror movies, or sang along to the “Narwhal” song.

My ban was especially irritating when I was attempting to create a playlist with a friend and couldn’t watch the music videos for any of the songs.

On the plus side, after school on Friday, my friends and I were actually able to complete the project we were working on. This was mostly because we weren’t watching “Glee” videos instead of working. This no-TV thing actually had some benefits.

At the completion of my week without TV, I was feeling surprisingly good. I had expected to spend all my time feeling sad and incredibly bored, but I was actually able to use my extra time to do homework and other useful things.

Television is just entertainment, like anything else. I think this week, I learned I don’t need silly vices like that to control my time. And since I had a lot more time to get my schoolwork done, I’ve decided to institute a no-TV rule before finals and other important commitments that are extremely time-consuming.