Almost every home in the developed world has a television set ‒ and many have several. When John Logie-Baird invented the goggle-box little did he know how ubiquitous it would become.

But having a TV can get in the way of your health, happiness and success – here are 3 reasons you might want to consider chucking your TV to improve your life.

1. TV Prevents Productivity

People often ask me how I have time to be a therapist, write books and articles, volunteer at a charity, run websites and businesses and still have time left over for my family and friends. Well, firstly, I’m passionate about what I do, and secondly, I don’t have a TV. Yes you read that correctly, I do not own a TV set.

Television is one of those insidious time-suckers that takes many more minutes from your day than you realise. I have no issue with people having down-time, but the trouble with TV is that it’s just so easy to plop yourself down on the sofa and waste your life in front of it. You’ll intend to watch an hour, then just continue watching whatever is on next.

TV is a massive distraction and if you learn to limit it, or chuck it out altogether, you could write that novel you always wanted to, start your own business, or learn a new skill.

2. It’s All Bad news

Look at all the terrible things happening in the world. It’s an awful, awful place where nothing good ever occurs. At least that’s the version that most people believe after sitting in front of the TV news every morning and night.

What people don’t fully grasp about the media is that it is designed to thrill, titillate and entertain ‒ and that includes the news. Stories are picked especially because they are terrifying, sad or gruesome. We occasionally get the feel-good item at the end about the rabbit that saved its owner’s life. But more often than not, we see all the bad stuff in glorious HD Technicolor beamed right into our faces.

The truth is, the world is much more balanced, nuanced and interesting than the TV news makes out. Watching the headlines does not give you an accurate world view and often just leaves you feeling depressed. If you must know what’s going on in the world, try the radio instead. The bulletins are shorter and more fact-based, with no room for gory war shots or other televisual depressants.

3. TV Closes Your Mind

The don’t call it the ‘Boob Tube’ for nothing. Unless you’re an avid documentary-viewer, most of the things you see on TV will be hackneyed, uncreative and trite. You may not think so, because producers do a very good job of advertising programmes as something that will surprise you. But actually, when you look at TV shows, most of them are based on the same old stories and the same old stereotypes.

What really ruined TV for me was doing media studies at college. Only by picking apart the way that programmes were made and the messages they were designed to give out could I really see the truth of the matter. Television programmes are not designed to make you into a free-thinker. They’re designed to feed you a certain ideology. And if you’re subject to someone else’s ideology, that is presented as ‘true’ because it’s on the telly, then what you’ve got in the corner of your living room is not a harmless entertainer, but a dictator.

TV will curb your creativity ‒ it literally doesn’t let you think outside of the box. If you want to be entertained in a less destructive way, go and read some poetry or listen to music. At least it won’t close your mind. And they won’t have those terrible adverts that tell you who you should, or shouldn’t be.