What TV shows give you TiVo Guilt?
Knowing we had knocked out 50% of our DVR stock last weekend, my wife sent me a story about TiVo Guilt. It talks about how the wonderful ability to record and save TV shows with the push of a button has begun to overwhelm us.
An excerpt:
"You want to watch TV, and what do you have? You turn on your DVR and you have a homework assignment," says Brad Berens, chief content officer for iMedia Communications, who analyzes how media advances change people's behavior."Economists call this 'opportunity costs,' " explains Berens. "You're sitting there and you have to weigh, well, 'I have to watch this thing, because I promised myself when I told TiVo ... I want the whole season of that! Go get it! And go get things like it!' And so you've committed to this decision and it's a burden -- suddenly your relaxation has turned into more work."
Oh, I know the feeling. Many times I've cued up the DVR and seen the capacity hovering toward 90%. It's made me delete entire seasons of shows: "Heroes," "Mad Men" and "The Reaper," for example. (I eventually went back and watched "Mad Men." Go me!)
Once a month or so, when we don't have a lazy Sunday to catch up, the guilt starts to grow, the DVR gets full and numerous episodes of "Prison Break," "Fringe," "My Name is Earl" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" begin to taunt me. I get all crazy, trying to figure out how I'm going to make time to them.
I don't know the answer. But I do know I'll take a packed DVR over a mess of VCR tapes any day.
Comments:
Delay your TiVo guilt and install a bigger hard drive :-) I've found that I just limit myself to 3 or 4 must watch shows, and then set the max number of shows for the rest at 3 to 5, and just consider them something fun to watch when I've got some spare time.
Posted by: godfirnon at December 2, 2008 3:19 PM
Mike, I have overcome TiVo guilt by setting the DVR to only retain between 1 and 3 episodes of the show. TiVo automagically relieves me of my guilt by deleting stuff I can't keep up with. Shows I really enjoy get watched almost immediately..
Posted by: Steve Mitchell at December 2, 2008 4:31 PM
Don't own one - don't want one. Too many other things to do that I enjoy doing besides plunking my ass down and watching TV. I don't have many "special" shows that I just have to watch. If I miss an episode of say, Hero's, so what - I'll pick it up next week and try to make sense out of what I can. If I can't connect from the previous week, so be it. If I lose interest because of disconnect then, "Oh, well". Those of you that can't disassociate yourselves from the fantasy of TV really need some counseling. Life is too precious to be wasted on mind numbing stupid shows (and that includes Hero's). Get out and do something constructive or spend those precious moments with family and friends. Life goes on minute by minute and you can never recover lost time. Believe me, you won't miss the TV shows and you won't have to concern yourself with TiVo guilt. I'm sure if you work on it you can come up with another neurological malidy besides the one that resides around your television.
Posted by: frem at December 3, 2008 5:08 AM
That reminds me of the days when I had my first TiVo in 2001. It was a series 1 14 hour unit using basic quality (no football watching on basic!). I had to stay on top of things, or else it would get deleted in a day or so. I had guilt in the old days when a unwatched new show got deleted because I lagged for a day! Now, I sit back with my 128 hour series 3 enjoying the HD content. Then I realize I have 49 episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, 21 episodes of Scrubs, and a crap load of Sponge Bob shows! Even though I had a bunch of what my Wife calls "Crap TV". I could not live with out my TiVo. I don't have a clue as to when my favorite shows air! So the point is that everyone out there needs to get out and buy a TiVo for Christmas. Not the CRAP that Comcast has. I am talking about a genuine TiVo. you can even order a pizza from Dominoes!!!
Posted by: ShawnC at December 3, 2008 4:20 PM
forgot a plug.
Don't forget to twitter at www.twitter.com/ShawnCarlson
Posted by: ShawnC at December 3, 2008 4:21 PM
I get in the same predicament every now and then, especially during the peak TV Show season. I have an HD DVR (DirecTV brank, not TiVo) and my problem starts to revolve around running out of space when too many HD shows start to accumulate. I have no problems with "TiVo Guilt". It's a clutter thing I guess. I prefer to keep my queue list minimal. Once I have caught up on my high priority shows, then if I have time I'll watch other items I'm checking out. If I know I won't have time to watch, then it's time to delete...guilt free.
Posted by: iSlappy at December 3, 2008 4:54 PM
i've found that this season of heros was the worst for me... sometimes the writing is painful but i keep remembering how the first season was and i keep on giving it a chance.... life, on the other hand, i like to keep on my dvr and savor the actual moment of viewing; quite the opposite of guilt :)
Posted by: rob at December 5, 2008 11:10 AM
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