One of the best things to happen to me in the recent past was to find myself without a TV.
I had just moved into my first "big girl all by myself" apartment, newly single, and television-less. At first, it didn't matter much. I was busy with work and moving and a few side projects and whoring.
Then, it didn't matter at all once I figured out that anything I wanted to watch was usually readily available via Hulu or live streaming.
I discovered it was really nice to not be tied to an arbitrary schedule created by someone else. "I have to be home by this time because my favorite show is on, and tonight we find out if Whats-her-face's lover is really a cyborg!"'
For just about a year, my laptop was my TV. I'd crank on a nearly commercial free show and dick around on Twitter or write a blog post or do whatever other multi-tasking is responsible for the complete inability to focus on one thing for more than 25 minutes at a time (thank gods for Pomodoro).
In the fall, friends gave me a really nice TV with a really broken cable output. I bought a Roku and an HDMI cord. And now, when I feel like it, I watch an episode or two of something, or work my way, systematically and obsessively, through approximately 573 episodes of Hoarders.
All that to say, I often walk a fine line between "information" and "information overload". Part of my work entails being plugged in to "what's happening" in my field and elsewhere through Social Media. There are days I want to throw my computer against the wall and cry...I can't possibly keep up with it all, and I don't understand the people who can. Are they sleeping? Do they have some sort of Matrix port in the back of their necks that allow them to understand Pinterest analytics and learn kung-fu at the same time?
I think perhaps I'm learning that I'm an individual who both needs and craves some sort of quiet space while also, paradoxically, fighting to stay "in the loop". This, as you might guess, makes me feel like a crazy person, oh, all the damn time.
There is still part of me that enjoys the rare weekend where all I hear is the click of the "next page" button on my Kindle.