Back in the simpler times of the early-2000s, there was only one; the evil television. An infestation of epic proportions took hold in the 1950s, a decade that began with a television in fewer than 10% of United States households but spread to over 80% by the decade’s end. As TV and broadcast options grew through the coming years, so did our time in front of that TV. The explosion of cable TV in the 1980’s only further fueled the fire and cemented TV watching as not only our favorite form of entertainment but how most people spent the majority of their time outside of work and sleep. No longer were families interested in playing board games, hide-and-seek, or kickball, as the allure of a comfy couch or LazyBoy recliner beckoned us and symbolized the leisure we had worked so hard for. Little did we know, we hadn’t seen anything yet.

By about 2010, a new technology was coming into prominence with even greater powers of possession; personal cell phones combined with social media apps. While television and cable TV packages gave us what felt like nearly unlimited television options, that smaller screen in your pocket could bring not only traditional TV-style entertainment, but also a quick dopamine hit at any time, repeatedly, through social media “Likes” of our posts and the excitement of watching our social media circle’s life stories unfold (nevermind the fact social media is about as real as “The Real Life” MTV series from the 1990s, but that’s a rant for another day). Those handy cell phones that never leave our side loaded with social media apps have pretty much possessed most of humanity, rendering us helpless against the evil screens and turning society into armies of socially inept zombies. How much of an exaggeration is this?

My life and screen habits through 2010 or so were similar to most others. I worked a 45-50 hour week, came home from work each day, ate dinner, and then barring anything on my calendar for that night would plop on the couch for a few hours in front of the TV until bedtime. I didn’t give it much thought until my kids had grown into toddlers and my life goals focused toward saving money and retirement. While we were never ones to spend huge amounts of money on cable packages with premium channels, our typical cable bills were still around $80 per month including internet and an expanded TV package with most of the common but none of the premium channels. In one of our money saving moves to push toward an early retirement, we cut the cable (the TV portion of it anyway) and switched to a rooftop antenna.

Over the next few years, we maintained either a Netflix or Hulu subscription for entertainment and the TV habit remained, a few hours worth on most nights. When life got really crazy in 2017 between buying a flip, tenants destroying our rental, and renovating our former primary residence for sale, we had NO time for entertainment, and so we cut off the streaming services for good.

Looking back on the monetary cost of watching TV, I remember the thrill of cutting our cable TV and getting rid of that extra $40 or so per month we had been paying. I also remember talking to some people that thought nothing of a cable bill pushing $150-200 so they could enjoy the fastest internet and all the cable channels they could handle. As more and more people did what we had done and cut cable TV, the old high-cost option of premium cable channels started getting replaced with premium streaming services. YouTube TV for $65 a month, Hulu another $15, Amazon Prime for $15, Netflix another $20, Disney Plus $10-$20; add ‘em up and we’re right back to over $100 a month! To cover all that streaming over multiple TVs, cell phones, and tablets, now we NEED the fastest internet speeds money can buy. This is a little crazy, no? What started as an effort to cut the cable bill turned into simply redirecting money from one place to another while still parking our asses in front of the same screen.

When the seemingly unlimited options on television aren’t enough, back to our cell phones to see if anyone in our online circle of “friends” is up to anything interesting. Of course they are! Why would they post anything boring or mundane? If your friends and their life highlights isn’t exciting enough, there are tens of thousands of “influencers” out there, professionals that are even better at feeding us carefully crafted perspectives of their supposed lives.

How many of us have sat around a table or with friends that can’t seem to put down their phone? It always starts innocently enough… oh, let me check what the weather is for tomorrow before we finalize plans, and then three hours later… wow, did you see the new puppy that John just got? Oh, and you should see the video of these girls that just stole bananas from an old lady’s shopping cart and started dancing around the store! This is effecting younger generations even more since their ability to sit and hold a conversation with real people is rarely developed. Why strike up a conversation with a real live person when millions of dopamine hits are there for the taking on social media?

As if screens sucking away our money and social skills isn’t a big enough problem, wait… there’s more! Within investing and spending money, there are opportunity costs gained and lost. This refers to spending money on consumer goods or services rather than investing, and hence losing out on the money gains you could have seen had you invested instead. You’ve lost that opportunity to earn more. The same applies to our time. By spending our time staring at screens, we lose out on the opportunities to genuinely improve our lives, whether it be learning a new life skill, exercising, crossing a project off our to-do list, or simply spending time with family or friends.

The opportunity costs really slapped me in the head when I suddenly had three houses to renovate. Despite holding down a full time consulting gig and getting my two kids to gymnastics, ballet, and scouts, we were still able to get way more done than I could ever imagine during those couple of years when we first shut off the streaming services. We renovated and sold two houses (with help from numerous contractors) plus did some renovations on our new house. Once renovations slowed down, I used my spare time to start playing guitar again and writing music. I had time to brew beer. Later, I started this blog. Rather than watching entertainment on TV, I’d watch YouTube instructional videos about recording music, building custom motorhomes, installing solar panels, or anything else I felt like learning about. By the time I retired, I had no interest in going back to my old TV lifestyle.

And I haven’t even touched on the health effects yet. Just listening to my body, I realized that sitting still for long periods of time makes me feel like crap; like an exhausted lump. Sitting still seems to sap all of my energy, and although counter-intuitive, the pain is real. When bedtime finally arrives, that feeling of loser-dom would kick in as I realized the entire night was wasted screen-staring rather than taking advantage of that precious gift of time. I still had the same to-do list to look at the following day. Another day of a sedentary lifestyle that runs us faster toward death than if you had you spent your time exercising.

The good news though is there’s a simple way to break the cycle. Stop it!!! See… easy. Shut off your TV and kill your streaming services and cable TV package. Uninstall social media apps. You don’t have to quit them entirely (although it wouldn’t hurt), but having to start a browser and log in rather than click on an app has cut the frequency I’m willing to look at them. I used the app Screen Time to get a handle on how much time was spent on each app per day and Digital Detox is another good one to help cut out screen time. When I did this a few years ago, I realized that 4-6 hrs daily phone use was pretty common for me! Sure, it included about 2 hours of GPS and Spotify time on my way to and from the office each day plus and about an hour of phone time for my consulting gig, but I was still wasting 1-3 hours per day doing nonsense. Removing social media apps and more consciously using my phone for specific tasks helped me cut my use from that 1-3 hours down to less than an hour. What could you do with another couple of hours every day?! Now add that to the time saved by NOT watching TV.

For all the “extra” time you’ll have, make a to-do list of ignored tasks, a list of hobbies you’d like to try, and a schedule for some exercise whether it be walking or biking or visiting a gym. If you don’t know how to do an item on your to-do list or want to learn about a hobby, watch YouTube videos to learn to do something rather than paying somebody else to do it or teach you. Saving money plus learning a valuable life skill? Win-win! Make that list of friends and family you wished you had more time for and give one a call or visit.

“But I’m soooo tired after a day at work”… Nope. That’ll go away. Making time to exercise each day actually energizes you! Checking things off your to-do list is energizing too! Learning a new skill or hobby is exciting. And keeping busy with real accomplishments through the day and evening hours will have you sleeping better than ever before! Contrast that with the energy and motivation sucking power of sitting in front of a screen for hours. It’s not that I never take time to be entertained, but I schedule it consciously. I take a half hour each night to watch a show with my kids and sometimes we’ll watch a movie on the weekend. If I spent much more time being entertained than that, I would have less time for other things that are frankly more important to me.

When you add it all up, between the monetary and opportunity costs, those stupid screens just aren’t worth it.