Where To Watch TV (And Where Not To)

by Adam Frucci

These days, you can watch TV pretty much anywhere. Be it on your actual TV, on your laptop, on your phone or on a tablet, they’ve made it pretty easy to entertain yourself wherever you are. But with all that freedom comes responsibility: responsibility to watch TV only when and where is appropriate. Let me help.

Your Living Room
Obviously, this is fine. This is where you have always watched TV, and it is where you should continue to watch TV. I mean, come on. You don’t need my permission to watch TV in your living room.

Your Office
You are probably not supposed to be watching TV in your office. You’re supposed to be working! But really, if you’re able to sneak in 15 minutes of streaming TV here and there, I say go for it. Nobody works for 8 hours straight; you’ve gotta have your little breaks to keep your brain from melting. So this is as an appropriate setting for TV watching as you’re able to make it.

The Bedroom
People like having TVs in the bedroom. Lying in bed and watching TV is nice! But I’m going say you really shouldn’t be watching TV in bed on a regular basis. The bedroom should be for bedroom things, like sleeping and having sex and making forts out of your sheets. Falling asleep to the TV every night is lousy for both your sleeping habits and your lovemaking habits, if you’re sharing a bed with a significant other. Maybe it’s fine to watch something on your laptop or on a tablet in bed every once in a while, but having a TV at the end of your bed that’s used daily is bad news.

The Bathroom
Yes, yes, a million times yes. I think that smartphones, and the ability to watch TV on said smartphones, has been the biggest improvement to bathroom habits since indoor plumbing. What better way to pass the time than with an “SNL” sketch or an act of “30 Rock”? The only real question is whether you’re going to watch TV or play Angry Birds when you spend time on the commode.

The Gym
This is another one of those perfect places to watch TV, a place that feels completely different now that watching TV is even an option. I mean, what did we do before we could watch TV while on the elliptical? Read magazines? Think about things that happened to us earlier that day? Ugh.

The Car
If you’re a passenger in a car, being able to watch TV while stuck in traffic is a godsend, particularly if you’re under the age of 12. I am pretty bitter that I missed the era of back seat entertainment systems when I was a kid; instead I was stuck with guessing games and conversation with my family, which, gross. Of course, if you’re driving, if you watch TV you’re a pretty serious asshole. Yet somehow, people still do this! Come on, people: dying in a car accident because you were distracted by “Top Chef” makes for a pretty embarrassing obit.

A Party
Unless you’re at a party based around watching a TV show, like a “Mad Men” party or something, don’t be that guy watching a show on his phone while at a party. That’s only slightly better than watching TV while driving, and watching TV while driving has a good chance of killing you.

Church
This one really all depends on why you’re at church. If you’re there because you really want to be there, watching TV on your phone is probably not crossing your mind. But if you’ve been dragged there against your will, I don’t see anything wrong with entertaining yourself with headphones in Homer Simpson style. If you don’t believe in god, the only judgement you’ll have to worry about are the people in the pews around you.

This post brought to you by Xfinity from Comcast. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Comcast or its partners.

Adam Frucci is the editor of Splitsider, where he watches TV all day long.

Photo by Cloudzilla from Flickr.