Ask Lemmy

I have entirely replaced tv with doom scrolling

Yay?

Whenever I visit my parents the TV is on. They only have broadcast television, and ad breaks come on every 15 minutes and last 10 minutes. How can anyone watch a series episode or even worse, a movie like that is beyond me.

Oh yeah, definitely. I do not watch TV unless maybe my country is playing a sport or whatever.

I stopped watching TV probably 20 odd years ago. 🏴‍☠️

Well, TV rotted sometime in the 2000s. The History channel started running shit like Orange County Pawn Truckers and kinda took Discovery with it with Dirty Crab Busters, The Sci-Fi channel started playing wrestling, any fictional TV shows went gritty heartburn drama for 20 solid goddamn years, so I gave up.

I binged a few TV series, often years after they were made, first on DVD and then on Netflix. And as Netflix started losing content to the "It's just not available anywhere anymore" hole or the "We're making our own streaming service" hole, I preferred to just do without. So I do, and have for at least 10 years now.

Haven't had TV in years. Cable news is pointless and biased. I already spend allmy time doing other things.

The only time I see broadcast TV is if I'm in a hotel. I honestly can't remember the last time I watched it in my own home, but it's probably been around 15 years.

I mostly just watch YouTube. Man do I not ever miss TV.

At least 7 years ago. Cable company tried giving me a free setup with Internet and I refused

Depends what you consider TV, if you're talking broadcast 15 years since I've had it.

For a long time I only watched movies on a streaming service. Not even YT type stuff. But I've recently become addicted to YT.

I never liked being told when to watch a certain show or have to deal with ad breaks, so as soon as I found out I could just Pirate things, I stopped watching normal tv, every so often if I'm at someone's house or somewhere I'll stare at it but mostly I haven't watched tv in over 2 decades.

The internet tells me things going on in the world and my mate loves ranting about world news to me so I have my own news show.

My wife and I will cuddle up most nights to continue q show we're watching, we finish WWDITS (finale just aired) and move on to something else tonight

Though our "TV" is my local Plex instance running stuff I request through Overseerr rather than even the normal streaming platforms, so I have a much better experience than those provide

As for news and the like: YouTube, specific creators like the daily show or journalists I know have actual merit, and my local station through plexs live tv

I'm 47 and never had a television. Computers, projector, tablets yes but never watched linear TV at my place.

Absolutely. I was tired of watching regurgitated bullshit. If your media is making me check my phone ever 5 minutes or less your media is garbage. I can go to an EDM show and listen from 5 to 8 hours of music and forget I even have a phone.

I watch YouTube, and some shows on streaming apps, but traditional tv hasn’t existed for me since about 2008

American here, for sanity's sake I've pretty much stopped consuming political news since the fucking election. I stopped seeing movies in theaters years ago, so there are a lot of good ones still new to me that I can stream without ads.

Years ago, my TV is a screen only. I'm using a Nvidia Shield to display content for privacy purposes. I watch movies and shows from Netflix or pirate whatever isn't on there, and if I need news I'll get them online.

I haven't watched TV since I was 14 or so. Just didn't see a point when i could watch YouTube or download anime.

I think we need to define TV.

Tv in the sense of broadcast stations and shows. Haven’t touched that since 2008, DVDs and Streaming has everything I want.

TV in the sense of a shared screen for everyone. Nah, still needed and can be better than ever thanks to streaming, both retail and… other sources (plex)

I remember how I used to enjoy channel surfing with cable for hours on end. But that was because I would often land on the History Channel which was showing something about ... history, or some other interesting channel. Now I try it once in a while while riding my exercycle and it's just an absolute wasteland with nothing interesting on. How is it possible to have literally 1000+ channels without anything worth watching? Even the Food Channel has become worthless - now it's just hours of the "Pioneer Woman", a nasty creature who only has a cooking show because she's married to one of the richest men and largest landowners in Oklahoma.

Not since like ... almost 10 years ago. Even before I moved out. Last time my family moved, we just didn't bother to set it up. Literally everything you could want is available online, with less hassle, and no ads.

Gave up watching broadcast TV a couple of years ago. I have a decent enough laptop running Pop!_OS, an internet connection, and a 32" monotor. I can find what I want/need with that.

I had a good run with: YTCh.xyz

Some of the content seems to repeat if you watch it enough. I really like it as a concept though. This is something I miss. Just. Getting to watch something fun on the side and learn or listen to it.

I watch stuff in the background to satisfy my ADHD. And when I'm burnt out I watch stuff as it keeps me entertained while not taking much mental energy.

I gave up TV for a while, but built an automated Plex server about a year ago and have fallen in love with it. I find myself watching more shows than in probably the past decade. My wife was less than thrilled about the initial cost (and the fact that she lost some closet space to the server) but now she uses it every day and refuses to ever let me get rid of it.

For the unaware, Plex is a program that allows you to self-host a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu. You add media to the server, and it will automatically match it to the relevant show, download metadata, and make it available to your client devices to stream. The free version is fine for most small setups, but there is a paid license you can get to unlock all of the functionality; Most users opt to just get a lifetime license, so it’s not an ongoing cost.

If you prefer open source, Jellyfin is a good alternative. There’s a little bit more of a learning curve, because the client apps aren’t widely available and it often requires using something like Kodi to stream instead. But the idea is the same; Host a server, throw media at it, and be able to stream.

Automating the media collection is possible, and is what takes it from “this is a cool side hobby that I’ll abandon in a few months because the upkeep is a pain in the ass” to “this is now my go-to for shows I want to watch, and the upkeep is minimal.” Programs exist that allow your server to automatically search for ~~media~~ Linux ISOs, download it, and add it to your server. So adding new ~~media~~ Linux ISOs is simply a matter of requesting it to be added, and then the server handles all the rest automatically and you’ll have it available as soon as the download finishes.

My one big complaint about Plex is actually the lack of live IPTV support. You can integrate a digital TV tuner into your server to be able to automatically DVR live content. But Plex used to support an IPTV extension, which allowed you to add your own IPTV channels and stream them on any device. Plex did away with that extension support, because they have been pushing their own IPTV channels and they didn’t want to compete with the extension.

This is the majority of young people. I've never paid for cable TV.

Yeah like 10 years ago. I watch a lot of YouTube, listen to podcasts and watch films on my phone.

The last one seems weird but if I watch things on a TV or monitor I’ll be glued to my phone still, so watching on the phone means I give it my all.

I can't even remember the last time I watched regular, broadcast TV and not shows via streaming or videos on YouTube.

You can still read news, no need to be uninformed.

I stopped watching over 15 years ago. Don't miss linear tv a single bit

TV is hot garbage riddled with ads. So yeah, I no longer watch, ca. since 20 years.

You mean broadcast TV? Yes.

But TV is just another part of the internet now.

I still watch scripted, episodic, video content and get my news, local; national; and world, from the internet.