What happened during our Two Week TV Detox

How's your television viewing? If you're like most people, your consumption of television (including streaming options!) has probably gone waaaay up during the pandemic. Same happened for us, particularly this past winter.

We'd congregate in the living room around 4 pm and turn on the television and find some innocuous and mildly interesting reno show on HGTV or DIY to stare at. We'd have something to eat around 5:30, sitting on the couch in front of the television. And the boob tube would stay on all evening until around 8:30 pm when we would finally heed the not-so-subtle messages from the cat that it was "bedtime"!

But we noticed something strange. Most evenings, neither one of us would actually be watching television. We'd be sitting on the couch, maybe scrolling through our phones and the television would just be background noise.

On top of that... our sleep was quite disrupted. In case you missed the memo, blue light (from television and all electronic screens) seriously messes with melatonin production which throws off our circadian rhythm. Melatonin production (which gets your body ready for sleep) normally goes up in the evenings as it gets dark but... blue light basically tells your eyes (and your body) that it's daytime and to wake up! Not a good mix.

Remote control
(Image by Renate Köppel from Pixabay)

Soo... 10 days ago we agreed to kill the television viewing for a two week experiment. We also agreed to turn off our devices (smartphones) at 7 pm. Kind of a drastic step, but it was only for two weeks... we could handle that!

We started our television detox on a Monday and... it was hard! Sitting on the couch was like a trigger to pick up the remote and turn on the television. But we talked about it instead.

We also decided that we would play some real games (not digital games) in the evenings. We brought our little stash of games out of deep storage and put them in a cabinet in the living room for easy access. We don't have a huge stash but... what we do have has been working so far. We've been learning/relearning SkipBo and UNO. I had played the games before but they were new to my partner... who promptly beat the socks off of me multiple times! It's been quite fun (even the losing part) and we still have other options like Yahtzee, Cribbage and 10,000 (dice game).

I have to  admit, having not played UNO for years, I went online and downloaded the UNO app. I played it for a few days, just to refresh my memory and then deleted the app and brought  my learning into the real world. We still aren't great at calling out "UNO!" as we lay down the second to last card... but then the other person isn't great at catching the omission either!

I also downloaded the Phase 10 game app and played that for a few days to get a feel for the game. A cousin of mine from Europe had brought us the game as a present seven years ago but... we were not a game-playing household at the time and so I donated the game to a thrift store during one of my decluttering sprees. Sigh... But I think I'm going to buy a copy from Walmart (less than $7) and see how that goes. It looks a bit more challenging than SkipBo and UNO which is good.

Phase 10 card game (from Wikipedia)

Sooo... game playing has replaced TV watching for at least part of our evenings, which is a good thing. We are engaging with each other and laughing together. Lamenting repeatedly about "these cards aren't mixed!" and "who mixed these cards?" (that would be me...).

I've also taken to doing puzzles some evenings. It's a nice relaxing activity that calms my mind and spirit. We also journal, read books or sometimes call friends and family. That doesn't  always work well though because we are then interrupting their television-watching time!

I thought that when the weekend rolled round, we might be more tempted to watch a movie or something specific off of Netflix but... we managed to make it through unscathed. That's a good sign!

The thing I've noticed though is... if I don't choose something specific to do in the evenings, I default to just scrolling through my smartphone (before 7 pm)... maybe playing the Phase 10 app (I've already got the hang of it, so this is now just pure indulgence), checking the news, blinking through Facebook or... whatever. This is not a great alternative to television... and I know this. All I'm doing, if I'm not careful, is forming another evening habit and replacing one screen with another. Better to nip that in the bud...

As the weather warms up, we'll be able to do some outdoor activities in the evenings which will give us a wider range of options. I'm hoping that the siren call of the television will slowly wane... Who knows, once this two week experiment is over, we might renew it for another two weeks...

Why does Monopoly always end in upset?

 Have you ever played Monopoly? Of course you have!! We all have. Usually as kids and maybe even as adults. But, have you ever noticed, how often playing this "game" ends in upset? Last year our niece and nephew came for a visit and we ended up playing Monopoly. And... sure enough... it ended in upset. Why is that?

A few things come to mind. The game itself doesn't require a high degree of skill, but depends upon a lot of luck based on the roll of the dice. And this luck can seem rather unfair to those who are not as lucky. On top of that... the game is designed so that there is one winner who bankrupts the rest of the players. So, it's not just luck... but there is an actual streak of malice that can develop with the ultimate goal of destroying the other players. Toss in a bit of cheating... "No, that was a 6 you rolled, not a 7!"... and... we have a great recipe for game boards being tossed in the air, money thrown around and people storming off in huffs. And this is fun?

At a much deeper level, the game Monopoly, as its name suggests is solidly based in the idea of rampant capitalism where the small fish get eaten by the big fish until there is just the big fish. There is no room for the little fish to eke out a living on the fringes. All gets subsumed into the big conglomerates. And this is a good thing?

I was reading the book, Doughnut Economics, the other week (excellent book, by the way), and she mentioned the actual history of Monopoly. It's not what I had always thought it was. It wasn't invented by a man named Charles Darrow in the 1930s and sold to Parker Brothers. Even though Charles Darrow made millions off the game. Noooo... it was invented in 1903 by a woman named Lizzie Magie. And she had a much, much different vision of the game... because she was actually an anti-capitalist.

Look familiar?
A 1924 version of The Landlord's Game
as patented by Lizzie Magie.

Her game was called the Landlord's Game and it had two sets of rules, one based on monopoly and one based on anti-monopoly. It was designed to teach children (and adults) about the dangers of capitalism and introduce them to another idea... the single tax (land value tax)... the invention of political economist Henry George.

In the monopolist version of the game, landlord's make money off of their land and the goal is to push all of the other players to bankruptcy. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We know this version really well.

The anti-monopolist version, however was different. Whenever someone purchased land or added an improvement or collected rent, a portion was siphoned off as a single tax (land value tax) and distributed to the other players. The goal of that game was that the player who started the game with the least amount of money had doubled their money. Everyone ended up as a winner. I rather doubt that board games were tossed around in upset in the anti-monopolist version of Lizzie's game.

Lizzie's game was wildly popular and passed around by word of mouth with the "board" drawn on canvas. People tweaked the rules, tweaked the names of the lots on the board, until finally, Charles Darrow played a version of the game, tweaked it a bit more and sold it to Parker Brother's. The rest we know.

Sooo... now... the question becomes... could we revive an anti-monopolist version of the game? Could we play the game differently - not as budding capitalists but as something else... to teach cooperation and the benefit of shared resources. Maybe the world could be a different place... I'm going to have to read Henry George's book (if it's not too dense)...

For those interested... here are some other resources....

The Surprising History Behind Monopoly - YouTube video 4.5 minutes 

Monopoly is Theft - Harper Magazine - 2012

The Landlord's Game - A Parable for Modern Times - Medium, 2018