Sometimes it takes a big change to make a small change (that is really a big change...)
"Turn off that noise!", my mother would say. Or, "turn off that idiot box!" Did any of your parents say that to you? We were raised pretty strict--my sister and I. My brother, not so much...
I used to love TV. I am a product of 60s TV--Leave it to Beaver, Ed Sullivan, Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy, Bonanza...
When my mother wouldn't let us watch, my grandmother did. Late 60s, early 70s my sister and I got hooked on The Secret Storm and The Edge of Night after school and we would eat potato chips dipped in mustard. When my mother came home, that's when she would really shout, "Turn that thing off!"
Then came the 70s--All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Welcome Back Kotter, Carol Burnett, and of course Saturday Night Live. Late nights in college at George Washington University. I didn't have a TV in my dorm room, but Mitch did and we would hang out until wee hours of the morning playing backgammon and watching Johnny Carson.
The 80s were Hill Street Blues, Golden Girls, Dallas, Cheers. The 90s were Friends, Seinfeld, Homicide, LA Law. And then for me the 2000s were The Wire (my all time favorite show), Curb Your Enthusiasm. When reality TV started coming in, I started hating tv. I used to appreciate local news. Then I started to realize how bad it is. Anchorpeople are not once what they were.
I started to realize that my internal timeclock was dictated by the tv schedule. I would wake up and grab the remote and watch the Today Show. I would come home and put the tv on. I had a tv in every room--even installed in my bathtub and one in my kitchen. 
I would get in bed and turn the tv on. I even set the timer to go off in 20 minutes and then I would fall asleep like a Pavlovian dog. Craziness! Complete madness.
Then I followed my dream and moved to San Francisco (a whole story for another time) and set up cable tv, but found that I hardly watched it. I realized that it was just noise. Mom was right. Just background noise and I couldn't stand it anymore. I wasn't even really watching anything.
Fast forward--I just moved back to Baltimore (another story for another time) and this time, I did not order cable tv. I am, however, able to stream in shows. For me it is a social experiment, an internal analysis. I have a couple of smart tvs and now I stream in on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. What is the difference? The difference is that I am not a slave to tv scheduling. I wake up in the morning and I actually lie in bed and think. I think about yesterday. I think about today. 
When I do watch, I watch with intention and I pay attention. I go to sleep when I want to go to sleep (and usually it's much earlier than with regular tv.) I no longer watch the 10:00 drama and then the headlines on local news and/or Jon Stewart, knowing then it is time to go to sleep.
I am better rested. I read more.
I go to more lectures and classes. I talk on the phone more now at night and catch up with my friends because I'm not missing or interrupting a tv show. The jury is still out--I still feel like I should turn on the news at 6:00 and I miss not watching Jon Stewart at 11:00, but hey--I can catch him at breakfast the next day. I can create my own schedule and there's something very liberating about that!
Sometimes it takes a big change to make a small change--which is really a big change.
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