It seems somewhat counter-cultural to not have social media and tv, though rejecting those things doesn't define a culture. I've had visitors to my house that realize I don't have a TV and they assume I'm some kind of judgemental weirdo.
I own a computer monitor I can use for gaming, streaming TV shows or movies, or just a bigger screen for my laptop.
That's the only standalone powered screen I own, but honestly I don't see any difference between that and a regular TV. TV is about watching television shows regardless of whether they are downloaded from the internet, piped through a cable channel, or received with an antenna.
Similarly people that don't own stand-alone monitors but have laptop screens or iMac screens they use to stream TV shows have TVs in my opinion. To insist that they don't because they are using wifi instead of an antenna to receive the data seems a bit pedantic.
There is a big difference between selecting content and watching it; and having a selection of curated streams. Autoplay on youtube definitely hacks away at this difference, which is probably why youtube keeps turning autoplay on for me after I turn it off.
I don't own a TV and most people here don't seem to know how to react to this information. Often they don't seem to have considered the possibility that someone wouldn't own one. I haven't watched television for entertainment in a decade or so, so I only get references which I absorb through YouTube, Twitch. I wouldn't think of myself countercultural, but it shows just how conforming many people are without realizing.
Edit: by here, I'm referring to the Midwestern United States
Edit 2: would > wouldn't
What is television now? You're watching YouTube and Twitch, so what you're really avoiding is broadcast TV. The large and growing cord cutting movement is exactly that with people using their TV as a large screen for...YouTube and Twitch.
> I don't own a TV and most people here don't seem to know how to react to this information.
Really? We don't own a TV and it's very common within my friends group. I do watch occasional shows on my laptop and we streamed the superbowl on my husband's large computer monitor screen.
But I would say not having a TV is becoming more and more common.
I didn't have a TV for a long time out of spite towards the TV licencing system in the UK and the heavy-handed way it's enforced. I'd love someone with a background in RF engineering to explain how those TV detector vans are supposed to work with modern TVs and the massively higher electromagnetic noise floor!
I expect vegans get the same, I know getting rid of my car led to some people thinking I was the green police and they had to justify why they still owned theirs.
