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Survey: Do You Have a Television in the Bedroom?

10-26-dmod1.jpgYesterday we asked you if you allow pets to sleep in your bed with you. Now we want to know if you've got a television in the bedroom. A lot of experts think TVs shouldn't be in bedrooms ... some people need the background noise of a bad sitcom to fall asleep. What do you think?

 
 

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Comments (27)

I like doing entertaining things in my bedroom, but TV watching isn't one of them! ;-)

posted by GretaGrace on January 15th 2010 at 5:12pm
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The experts can keep the TVs out of their bedrooms. I like to fall asleep to a nice, predictable PBS Jane Austen production.

posted by heather77 on January 15th 2010 at 5:12pm
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No, but I don't see anything wrong with having one in the bedroom.

posted by sciencegeek on January 15th 2010 at 5:32pm
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I have one in the bedroom, but I've turned it on once in the last two years. (It's the old one from when we got a new living room tv.) I really need to just get rid of it.

I don't have a television. I used to, but did not watch very much. When the whole conversion thing happend I didn't think it was worth replacing it or getting a converter box either. If I want to see someting specific I can usually watch it on the internet.

posted by halophila on January 15th 2010 at 6:13pm
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I like to watch tv. But not in bed - it just distracts from the other things one ought to be doing there...

posted by lemonadefish on January 15th 2010 at 6:38pm
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no TV.. but we use our laptops to watch movies and surf the internets.

posted by mollycob on January 15th 2010 at 7:32pm
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My husband likes to go to bed early, and I don't like to sit in the living room watching the news without him. So, yes, we have a tv in the bedroom. Also, I can NOT sleep without background noise, so when I'm ready to sleep I put it on one of the digital music channels.

posted by Fnnkybutt on January 15th 2010 at 9:04pm
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Neither one of us wants a TV in the bedroom, and the only exceptions have been the time I had flu for two weeks straight, and the time we both had flu for a solid week. Other than that, though, we're perfectly happy with having a single TV in the living room.

If we were to get a second TV, I'd rather have it in the kitchen than in the bedroom.

posted by How Green Is My Valley on January 15th 2010 at 10:18pm
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Oy. I use the bedroom for more than sleeping. Therefore, it is fine for me to have a TV in it or a radio or books or whatever.

posted by stickyricemama on January 15th 2010 at 10:29pm
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My whole apartment is my bedroom, so yes.

posted by rosenatti on January 16th 2010 at 7:18am
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No, I'm not sure about the effect, but we try to keep the eletrical stuff out of the bedroom. It seems kind of new age, I guess, but turn off your phone, no TV, no stereo, no nothing - I'm not sure it will improve your sleep, but it can't be bad.

posted by thisismycat on January 16th 2010 at 7:56am
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When I'm well, there's no TV in the bedroom and I do sleep better.

On the rare occasions when I'm sick, the TV/VCR/DVD gets wheeled in and there's a secondary cable coming through from outside so it's a quick connect. There's even a box of my favorite movies so it usually feels more like a quick vacation than being sick.

When we moved into our new home, we kept the TV out of the bedroom . . . but 9 months later, we've decided to bring it back for two reasons: 1) Sick days 2) Laundry is unbelievably tedious w/o a little TV going on.

When my husband and I got married and moved into our first place a few months ago, I was adamant that I did NOT want a TV in our room. To my thinking, the bedroom should be about togetherness, intimacy, peace and quiet, retreat, and shelter, even from the rest of the home. We have a perfectly good couch with a nice television in the living room.

posted by if1hadwords on January 16th 2010 at 3:10pm
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No, but the laptop sometimes comes in to the bedroom.

posted by midnightskyfibers on January 17th 2010 at 2:45am
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My bedroom is my zen place. No tech allowed. I think a TV or laptop would distract from my attempt to fall asleep peacefully. When I would sleep at my ex-bfs, he liked to fall asleep to the tv, and inevitably it would wake me back up in the middle of the night and keep me up until i could find the remote.

I have one small tv. It lives in the bedroom. In my area we can only get tv reception with cable. I don't have cable and just use the tv for watching dvds. If I want to watch a tv program I use my laptop, not in my bedroom.

posted by annieoneil on January 18th 2010 at 2:14pm
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I wonder how much energy is used having the tv on all night?

posted by Lizzykewl on January 19th 2010 at 4:39am
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i have a tv in the bedroom but only because i found that when it was in the living room my husband and i would eat dinner in front of the tv or i would get distracted while trying to study. putting it in the bedroom was a practical solution, but an imperfect one i admit.

posted by muro.lamere on January 19th 2010 at 3:00pm
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We have one in the bedroom and it's mainly used in the morning when we're getting ready for work to see news/traffic etc.

posted by modernguy on January 19th 2010 at 5:27pm
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When I can't sleep, The Weather Network takes care of that in a pinch.

posted by ctmagnus on January 19th 2010 at 6:28pm
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Yes we have one. No, I don't really like it that way. But my husband does. He's let me have my way on so many things in the house, so I let him have his way on that. One of the many compromises of cohabitation.

posted by MrsCatbird on January 19th 2010 at 6:29pm
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Yes, we do but it is hardly used. It almost doesn't seem worth the $5 a month lease fee on the receiver. I can't remember the last time I've watched anything on it for more than five minutes. The longest things I watch on it are hgtv shows while I'm cleaning back there. they keep me motivated to organize and clean.

posted by funstraw on January 20th 2010 at 9:46am
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I DO have a television in my bedroom, and it's one of those modern ones with an OFF switch so I don't have to listen to it if I don't want to.

all tech all the time in our bedroom. our huge, wonderful bed is like an island and we refuse to get out of it any more than necessary... this may be a holdover from our studio apartment days, but we eat, read, work, watch things, and generally just occupy our bed as though that's where we're supposed to be. it doesn't seem to affect our sleep one way or the other, except that we maybe take more naps than other people....

posted by wyzwomyn on January 20th 2010 at 3:09pm
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I don't have a TV in my bedroom (though my BF has one in his man cave, in which he sleeps) but I sometimes fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV.