In the olden days, it was the radio that was the main attraction in the house until the TV came along. I remember growing up with our black and white tv - brand is Radiowealth. When I got married, cable connection started to get popular although it was expensive. Right now, we have 2 cable connections - Sky Cable and Cignal Cable. The first is our original cable which is not that good so we had a new cable provider which is better. I have noticed in the last few days that the TV has no match for gadgets. After dinner time in the bedroom, my husband would be watching tv while I use my phone for playing or for Facebook. In the living room, the tv is not turned on because our 2 housemaids are busy with their gadgets, doing Twitter or maybe playing games. The usual service of the tv in our home is the evening news and some selected programs only. Compared to other homes, our tv usage is about less than 10% of the normal.
It's true for me, I hardly watch TV and now I'm kind of mad that I even bothered switching from AT&T to Direct...it does save me some money but I really don't watch it anymore and I have a 2 year contract.
I use my television but it's hooked up to Roku rather than to cable or to a network. However, I use another computer monitor when I'm playing DVDs so that I don't have to have a separate DVD player. I probably have some around here but I don't want the unnecessary clutter.
I mainly watch television in the evenings. There are specific shows I watch, and when I see commercials for newer shows, most don't interest me. There is one starting soon that I've watched in the past, and I'm interested to see how the new season goes, but I'm really heading toward cutting off the cable and using streaming apps for most of my entertainment. I'll still be using the televisions to watch my shows, but will stream via the blu-ray or roku. I think I can also stream via my phone to television via a cable I bought, but I haven't tried hooking it up yet to see. I am waiting to do that until I earn enough Google Play credits, so I won't have to pay for it. If it works though, I should be able to stream that way via Netflix on the phone, so I won't have to purchase another roku or other streaming device.
We have a television, and it is hooked up to DirecTV; but we only use it to watch the election programs. It is pretty much a waste of money, except that Fox News will only come when you have a cable or satellite programming. Bobby does like to watch some of the game shows and singing shows like The Voice which are on live television; but mainly he watches movies on Netflix, and he use his iPad when he does that. I seldom watch television at all; but I am online with my iPad all of the time, and often watch youtube videos, and use my iPad for doing that. Both of us have headphones, so we do not disturb each other with our separate programs, unless we are talking about something together. Now and then, we will watch a movie that we are both interested in seeing, and then we do use the television for that, and also if it is something from Youtube, then we can also watch that through the Apple TV box. We do have a stereo system; but again, we do not use it because we listen to music with the iPad and headphones, or through a bluetooth speaker. I don't play games; but that does seem to be a popular pastime nowdays; so I totally agree with you, @Corie Henson , that the techy gadgets have taken over most of our lives now.