If you have kids, not having a TV is plain cruelty.
You could just as easily argue the opposite!
Do you know what kids do (in my experience, at least) if there is no TV around? They read.
The main problem with having no TV is the risk of it becoming forbidden fruit in the kid's mind and thus becoming more attractive. We hit, inadvertently, on a nice solution to this: we always had a TV around, just a really crappy one. It was rarely on. The kids were welcome to watch TV at friends' houses or their grandparents'. At home, that time mostly went into reading or playing.
Edit: I don't recall any evidence that they felt socially out of step with TV-watching peers. I do remember that when Power Rangers were a huge deal, our daughter became passionate about Power Rangers, so we always let her watch it. Then one day she said: "I don't care about Power Rangers any more. The story is always the same." That was a proud day in the gruseom household! :)
Yup I'd say those are the biggest factors. I dislike the notion that reading is somehow better than other activities though. Kids need a balanced diet.
Socially, I'd argue that TV is better for kids than books.
I grew up in the country where we had barely one channel through the fuzz, I maybe watched half hour a week. The rest of the time I played outside, learned how to work hard on a farm, immersed myself in Legos, wrote stories with my sister, and played cowboy in the woods.
Giving the creative mind enough time away from a TV to have to earn it's own entertainment is hardly cruelty.
Right, and since everyone else was in a similar position, I'm sure that worked fine. My problem comes when everyone at school is talking about some element of popular culture, and one kid doesn't have a clue what to say because his parents don't let him watch TV.
I experience this already with my six year old when he plays with the neighborhood kids. We have a TV, but we don't have cable, nor do we have bunny ears to get the local stations (not that we could get them in the future anyway). We don't bar them from watching TV (much like the friends and grandparents exception someone else mentioned), and we do all watch kids' movies at home once a week or so. The only bits of kids' culture that they know are Sesame Street (because of a few videos) and the various Pixar movies (Cars, Wall-E, etc).
Are you kidding? Not being able to talk about pop idol wannabe got booted is a serious problem for you?
"My problem comes when everyone at school is talking about some element of popular culture, and one kid doesn't have a clue what to say because his parents don't let him watch TV."
This sounds like your projecting your own issues onto your kids (believe me when I say I know how that plays out, ask me why my kids aren't going to school sometime). Actually forcing TV on your kids or insisting that it's vital is utterly ridiculous.
Forcing your kids to eat unhealthy is cruelty, locking them in a closet is cruelty. Not having a TV is un-American, not cruelty.
I grew up without a television, and it really wasn't that bad. The problem I ran into was a little different- when I was around a television, I couldn't stop paying attention. I've gotten better about that sort of thing as I've gotten older, but the truth is, I still can't tune out noise, or televisions, anywhere near as well as my peers who grew up with televisions.
I don't know if that's a common experience though.
We don't have a TV... but we let our daughter watch movies and cartoons (especially Russian ones on rutube.ru). Her favorites are the ones produced in the 1950-1970 timeframe.
