No Cable for a Year

For over a year now I have lived in an apartment with no cable. It was a finical decision that my roommate and I made when we first moved in. We wanted to have internet but cable looked as if it was going to be too costly especially since neither of us watch much television. This past year has been interesting, without cable I have had to adapt to not seeing the shows that I did watch when I had access to cable in my undergrad dorm. Because of the lack of internet I have had to watch shows that I am interested in on the internet. Hulu and the various network web sites have become my new television. While these sites still have commercials they are few and far between and they can be custom tailored to your needs and wants, in theory I still get many cat litter ads despite my telling it I have no cat.  The sites also have the advantage of getting to see the shows whenever you want to.

While there have been many times that I have wanted cable I find that not having it has not impaired my life in the slightest, it may have even improved it. There if the finical savings that I mentioned earlier, which in this economy is important. That extra cash can be used to buy important things like food, it can be put aside for a rainy day, or whatever. There is the time saving, I can’t count the number of hours that I would watch TV just for its own sake. Without TV that time can be better used since it takes more effort to watch TV on the internet, especially when shows are on various sites. I also find myself less drawn to the silver screen movies. This could be because most movies over the past year haven’t really applied to my but I am sure the fact that I am not being bombarded by trailers for them in commercials helps too. The only down side is I cannot watch shows when they premier, and when people come over we can’t all watch TV. Overall, I would say that if you drop cable from your life you just may find that it is not all that bad.