TiVo ruined this man's life. Either that, or his wife did. Either way's it is ruined.Here's his argument: Sure, a PVR lets you catch your favorite shows while you're out and about so you don't have to skip important real-life events to stay home and watch live TV. But now it's too easy to amass a collection of programs you actually want to watch, and most nights of the week, the easy thing to do is come home from work, plop down on the couch and watch three or four hours of TV.
He figures he watches about 2.5 hours more per day of television than he did before he met his wife and her TiVo. Even if you take out the time it takes to watch commercials, he figures that amounts to nearly 1300 hours over the past 4 years... or a total of 53 days.
Think of what you would do with an extra 2 months in your life. Learn a foreign language? Become a better golfer? Take over a small country? Take a long nap?
There's been a lot of speculation over whether PVR owners actually watch more TV or less. I think it varies from household to household. We definitely watch more Law & Order than we used to. Even though it's on almost every waking hour of the day, having a PVR means we can always catch episodes from the beginning.
It's possible this guy's wife would have been just as large a TV fan even without the TiVo, and they'd be spending their evenings watching whatever's on instead of shows they've preselected. But it does make you think.
1. I agree. Although I save a ton of time with the 30 second skip I find myself watching a lot more TV because I can record shows 24/7 and watch what I want when I want. I definitely let shows pile up and then think I need to watch them all, some are calling this Tivo guilt. I'm really thinking of getting the iTV or Netflix box if they have TV shows plus and HDTV tuner for the networks for news and local sports and then getting rid of cable TV and my MCE box. Doing this I can probably spend about the same or less than my current cable bill but I will be more conscious of the cost of each hour of TV that I watch. Other benefits include improved video quality, no ads, and not watching (wasting time on) new shows that get cancelled half way though the first season (Invasion, Surface). Minuses include less selection of shows, particularly "background" type shows such as home improvement, cooking, fishing shows, etc. Overall though I think adopting such a system will save me money, time, and get me away from the couch.
Posted at 4:36PM on Sep 22nd 2006 by Chris