(English) TV (via sat dish) has become a shared hobby/interest of my partner & I. We do not have less conversations/discussions, although I would agree a large majority (whilst watching the Sq box) are about the trashy programmes we chose to have on. It is a form of entertainment and relaxation for us. A lot of the time we will record and watch later when there is ‘nothing on’ - and we have control over what we watch and when.
My OH is not a deep conversationalist (unless you are talking about their garden of course 😉 and we use the TV to relax and unwind together.
Our lives are full and busy and it is a way to tune in and tune out to make sure we recharge the batteries.
I am the one who will watch more documentaries, and I often find myself doing some ‘extra research’ later on the internet if it is something that has taken my fancy.
Everyone seems to use PC’s/have access to the vast WWW these days, so I see very little difference between watching movies/dramas on internet and on our own TV set.
If Blind Date is good enough for Germaine Greer, then it is OK for me too 😉
(As I prefer to have snippets of UK news - just to keep up with things so I can chat to the family back there about ‘The state of things’, I choose to do this via BBC TV news than any other source. I don’t need to know the nitty gritty, just feel that I am ‘keeping in touch’ with their world.)
We all have a choice whether we want to watch or not… (As Barbara Castle said?)
😉