I live in a place now where we don't even get TV reception (thank GOD!) and love it!

-- I'm not bombarded by either a TV (or people who constantly watch it) by the message that I'm not enough & don't have enough. (#1 premise of sales -- convince your potential buyer they NEED your product, which means you have to make them believe they don't have what they need, which message, multiplied by every "sell" you get on TV -- whether it's products, ideas or story lines -- amounts to a hell of a lot time reinforcing the belief that you don't have enough = poverty mentality.)
-- I'm not swamped by bad news all the time.
-- I don't have to see the "beautiful people" flash plastic smiles in scripted environments, decorated to look like life.
-- And I'm not surrounded by people who live through the story lines they watch on TV. Do we really carry on concerned conversations about fake life????

and something I didn't expect (which has a lot to do with the lack of TV, but also where I live)

-- When a holiday comes, it comes, I'm happy, and then it goes and I don't have to spend up to 4 months inundated with advertising and other propaganda about it.

When I do go down to town (I live in a remote place in the mountains) and happen to catch some TV, it almost instantly depresses the hell out of me and makes me feel totally hopeless about the world.

It's no doubt a powerful medium but most often, unfortunately, completely misused.

Thanks for the space to rant!