Very unique and unpopular opinion, I know, but I hate watching ads during a show. Fuck the advertisers; I refuse to pay attention.
Rather than doom scroll, I’d love to hear what you think I should do when ads are on.
To make things challenging:
*often I’m pinned to the couch by my senior dog who I’m loathe to move unnecessarily, so getting up and doing squats is often out
*loud activities are probably out, see above
*be specific, ‘I play games on my phone’ - but what can you play casually, for 30s at a time (for example) and then happily go back to watching your show?
*use adblockers bla bla, not always possible and not in the spirit of my request.
That being said, all suggestions are great - I’m sure we’ll all get something from it. Stick it to the man!
Sail the high seas and never see an ad again. Make your time your own.
Seriously. Ditch your streaming providers; ditch cable. Just get Stremio + Torrentio + Real-Debrid. And SmartTubeNext. All the video content you could ever need on your TV can be streamed instantly through these two apps. Every movie; every TV show; all of YouTube. All ad-free. Buy an antenna for local channels/sports and you’re set for life.
Stretch, focus on muscle groups in your hands or arms or shoulders or neck if you can’t get up, back or hips or calfs or ankles if you’re standing
Drink water and walk around your living room. Stay hydrated and get a little exercise in. I also sometimes play mini crosswords because they can be done in less than a minute. Shoutout to !crossword@lemmy.world.
Watch YT shorts during the ad break. Use a laptop + Firefox + uBlock origin to block the YT ads. If you prefer to use a tablet or a phone, it’s also possible to block the ads.
The shorts are bad, but still better than TV ads, but the good thing is, they can be interrupted as soon as the ad break ends. Watching longer videos is also an option, but there will be uncomfortable interruptions.
Now that you have an alternative video source competing with old school media, you can start to think about which one you actually enjoy more. Maybe you’ll find yourself watching more YT than whatever fake reality BS is on TV.
Learn a language. Ad breaks are long enough for one or two lessons in Duolingo and probably other apps as well.
Oh gosh I’ve tried Duolingo so many times over the years and never gotten far. I’m impressed with people who keep it up.
For me, the key was finding a regular time during the day when I do the lessons. That’s why I recommended you do it during the ad breaks.
Exercises like Duolingo are only half the battle. You need to have some immersion in the language you’re learning. Watch tv and listen to podcasts in the target language, you won’t understand (at first) but your brain will start recognising the sounds and structures.
Reached my 1700 day streak today
Send help
The owl has my family
An ex-coworker of mine recommended Mango Languages, which is supposed to be much better and also if you have a library card, you can usually get a subscription for free through them! The lessons are probably a little longer than 30 seconds, but not too much longer. I’d say a minute tops.
Meditation/mindfulness/breathing exercises
Lol Exuberation
If you’re watching something on TV, record it and watch it later instead of when it airs. Even starting it 15 minutes later would probably let you fast forward through many of the ads.
still valid for streaming services–makes good use of the analog hole!
make a grocery shopping list (or any to-do list)
Stretch your legs by raising them straight (still sitting down) and rotate your feet
Stretch your arms up and move your neck, rotate your shoulders
Think what went well today
Lovingly hold the dog and do dog-weighted squats
Mute the ads
Already muted compadre
Better then muting - pause and then fast forward.
Install Firefox and unlock origin
Not an option for OP - think they’re talking about TV
Offline Chess, Minesweeper, Sudoku etc. on your phone?
Using an RSS reader and catching up on news?It should be just enough time to call your cable provider and cancel. We’re not in the 2000’s anymore
Have you ever played on boardgamearena? It’s a website where you can join a bunch of board games with people around the world. When it’s your turn, you have a certain number of hours or days to make your move (kinda like old timey chess by mail) and then go back to your life. You can be in many games at a time.
Oh that’s cool, I’ll check it out - thanks!
I don’t have any ad breaks.
That’s cool. How was your day otherwise?
Ad free.
Anything else doing?
Not watching ads
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The way I try to approach these threads is to try and pretend there’s a bunch of people sitting around having a conversation.
If you’re familiar with the dynamic, and you emulate it here, you might enjoy yourself more. Or you could do this I suppose?
Each to their own.
If we’re in a room, and we’re comfortable enough to carry out a casual conversation, I’m gonna tease you for clinging to a bad take.
