<p>"At my daughter’s university, watching tv is a social event in the lounge, not something one does in one’s room. As far as I know, this is also the case where my son is going this fall. At least, I hope so. "</p>
<p>Wow, we have VERY different experiences. Almost all the kids have tv’s in their dorms (both public and private). In the private dorms the wall unit in the living area is made to hold 32" tv’s and that is typically what the kids have. The regular dorm kids generally have 24-26".</p>
<p>Compared to all I read about the kids drinking and having sex while away at college a little tv watching seems fine to me!!!</p>
<p>I would say most kids with TV still engage in drinking and sex. I think by letting them have TV would prevented them from from drinking and sex, I would be buying a lot more TV stocks. But I don’t see it going up yet.</p>
<p>Yes, tv is basically banal, compared to some vices, and for those who must have their tv it may be a necessity. I wouldn’t want my child to have a tv in the dorm room. Mine doesn’t have a tv in the bedroom, and DH and I don’t either (although we did previously). I didn’t watch tv for years when I was in college. Once or twice I remember watching saturday night live in the lounge. I studied so much that when I was free I preferred to be with people doing something else.</p>
<p>My son used his grad money to buy a 22 inch TV for his room. He will have a private bedroom in a four person suite. He currently sleeps on a futon in front of the family TV, so it’s more of a sleep aid for him. Since he will be in his suite alone for the first week before his suitemates arrive while he does a service project, we are happy he will have “TV company” to help him sleep.</p>
<p>One thing he will not have, though, is his TIVO, which has become an addiction, on top of his XBOX, which will not accompany him to college. </p>
<p>When he realizes he cannot watch his favorite programs whenever he wants, I think his TV will get more use as a computer monitor than entertainment, or he can move it into the common area to share with his suitemates.</p>
<p>Wow, this thread is making me feel old. 22", 24", 26" and 32" (and larger?) TV’s for DORM ROOMS?</p>
<p>And all I can think back to is the fact that I was thoroughly happy that the 24" TV in my dorm’s lounge freshman year was <em>color</em> and got all three networks plus PBS. One of my fondest memories of freshmen year is watching the whole Roots saga with a (very) large group of dorm mates.</p>
<p>I was one of those kids that came into college thinking that I wasn’t going to need a TV because I was going to be so busy with school and social engagements. Well, that lasted for about a month. I told my parents that I missed my TV and when they came to see me for Parents Weekend, they brought up my TV, Playstation and DVD player. The thing is, even the busiest of kids will have downtime where they just need to relax and take their mind off of school. I mean I don’t watch a lot of TV, relatively speaking, but it’s just nice to unwind after a long day and watch the game or some random movie. On my dorm floor last year, there was only one kid that didn’t have a TV and every so often he’d crash in my room and mention how he wished he had brought his TV with him.</p>
<p>As for the TV sizes, it all depends on the room. For the small singles, anything above a 40" is too big and awkward to look at, in my opinion. For the doubles/large rooms, a big screen is nice, especially for sports.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for a cheap TV, just go to a goodwill/cheap resale shop. You can pick up a decent 20" for like 20 clams.</p>
<p>Not having had a tv in their room at home shouldn’t, in my opinion, be a comparator when it comes to deciding whether or not to have one in a dorm room. Presumably, at home, your kids get to watch tv SOMEwhere in their home. At college, the dorm room is their home. </p>
<p>Not all dorms have a lounge, or common room, with a tv so a dorm room may provide the opportunity to have a few friends over to watch a favorite show. I remember with one of my Ds, her room became the place to watch The Amazing Race, which provided some much needed socializing and relaxing. All my Ds had a tv in their room, or suite, during college, brought either by them or by a roommate. Usually if it was in their room, it was on top of a dresser. </p>
<p>If you’re worried about kids having distractions, I’d be more worried about a computer than a tv with today’s generation of kids!</p>
<p>I actually think maybe Tivo would be a good Christmas gift. Letting the kids study knowing their favorite show/sportingEvent is being saved for them. Has anyone purchased a Tivo for a dorm? I’m only familiar with DVR’s.</p>
<p>My D watches shows she likes on her computer. There is a lounge with a TV on each floor of the freshman dorm she will be staying in if she wants to watch shows with others. She will get her roommate assignment this week and if her roommate brings a TV then D will be fine with that.</p>
<p>I am in awe: A 40" TV is appropriate for a double dorm room? Our one and only working tv in the living room is a standard 24" model on a converter box. We only get channels off the air and except for Sunday night PBS and Monday night Fox, we simply don’t turn the tv on that much. S really hopes that his roommate to be <em>won’t</em> be bringing a tv for the dorm room.</p>
<p>I really can not imagine considering a television to be something necessary for a dorm room. I’m sending my kid to college to study. Of course, I know they have down time, but video games and TV? Not on my dime. S was sent off with a computer wiped of all games (on advice of the school of engineering dean), no game discs, no gaming consoles. Sure, they can use someone else’s, but that will be limited. Limited is good. My D won’t really have down time, there’s really no such thing for a music major, still, her “extra” time would be spent sleeping, exercising, seeing performances, or briefly keeping up with friends on facebook–or composing, doing extra performances, messing around with a new instrument just for fun. Sorry, I really don’t get this obsession with TV. If they’ve got that much extra time, they should get a job, do volunteer work, tutor others, do research, take an extra course. Or read a book for fun–what a concept for a college student!</p>
<p>If your kid was not a TV watcher growing up, I can see why they wouldn’t miss having one in college but if they enjoyed watching TV in their spare time all their life, it would seem odd that they would be expected to not want to watch tv anymore just because they are in college. </p>
<p>DH and I are tv watchers. S2 is a History channel junkie. Both my kids schools are big state u’s whose sports teams are on TV. Getting together w/ friends to watch the games and cheer on their school is a lot of fun for them.</p>
<p>If someone kid doesn’t like tv…dont have one. But for ones who do, I don’t think it’s a big detriment to their college life.</p>
<p>There are tons of ways to waste time in college that have nothing to do with tv or video games.
Can anyone say Facebook :)</p>
<p>It’s not so much that I object to the idea of a tv in a dorm room, but a 40" one? Do parents actually buy brand new monstrous sized tv’s for their kids’ dorm rooms these days? What’s wrong with bringing a modest sized older tv that can be ignored by your roommate if they prefer to read a book while you’re watching tv?</p>
<p>And what’s a cable/satellite tv-dependent kid going to do if they wind up at a place like my S’s college where there are no cable or satellite connections in the individual dorm rooms?</p>
<p>I only watched one show when I left for college, but I brought a tv for social viewing purposes-- we did not have TVs in our lounges, I actually periodically brought my tv to the lounge for larger groups to use with me. If nothing else, I watch a lot of movies with my fiance and it’s a pain to have multiple people watching a laptop. I ended up watching a lot more tv than I used to but it was never a problem. My roommate had said she didn’t watch tv but also enjoyed having it. We agreed that if anyone wanted it off at any time, it went off without argument. It went without saying that it was not on if someone wanted to sleep. It was not a big deal and provided simple, inexpensive entertainment, and it was nice to be able to watch the football games. </p>
<p>The only problem it caused, which wasn’t really so much a tv problem as just a plain roommate problem, was that my roommate would invite friends over to watch Jersey Shore reruns with her when she knew I already had plans for the TV and flatly refused to give a crap about it. </p>
<p>For studying it was not really a big deal because there are umpteen million other places even just in the residence hall to study. I prefer to study in my dorm room but it was pretty rare that I had to move anyway.</p>
<p>But would she have turned the tv off if she and her friends wanted to watch Jersey Shore and you wanted to have the tv off so you could sleep, read a book, listen to a cd, or study when you <em>didn’t</em> want to leave the room for some reason?</p>
<p>While TVs are not vital, they can be quite helpful for social things. I lived in a suite last year, and we had TVs in our common room and then in my room and my suitemate’s room. The ones in the rooms were used least. I used mine to watch ESPN at night or in the morning or the occasional movie, but the one in our common room got used often. WE used it for everything from video games to watching games to class assignments. People were over daily, anywhere from there being 3 to 20 of us.</p>
<p>“But would she have turned the tv off if she and her friends wanted to watch Jersey Shore and you wanted to have the tv off so you could sleep, read a book, listen to a cd, or study when you <em>didn’t</em> want to leave the room for some reason?”</p>
<p>For most of those scenarios, I think so. If a roommate is not considerate enough to do those things, I think it really has little to do with the tv. My roommate could just as easily jump up and down and scream while I am trying to read a book or sleep, if she doesn’t care about being a disturbance she is going to be a disturbance regardless of if we have a tv. With the exception of a few small squabbles over what to watch once it was agreed the tv could be on, the tv caused no conflicts-- and I almost never had to leave the room because of noise issues. If anything we bonded over the tv, as it turns out we both loved watching The Nanny marathons on nick at nite. :P</p>
<p>I had one of those little black & white TV’s that were maybe 13" diagonal, and to tune it you turned the dial to land on either a UHF or VHF channel. My friends and I used it to watch David Letterman if common room TV’s were not available. We were happening, I tell ya! It was a comparative rarity. I knew a theater major who had an actual VHS VCR on which she watched old movies. That was really luxurious.</p>
<p>D is a rising sophomore and has bought herself a 23" monitor to use with her laptop and to use for viewing parties. She will be a RA in a single. She will not have cable since her purpose is not for her to watch tv in her room. </p>
<p>In high school she watched tv for maybe an hour at night. In her freshman year she rarely watched tv except for viewing parties ie Glee, Lost etc. They were social gatherings for a break from their studies. </p>
<p>We did have a conversation when she told me she was thinking about buying the monitor. I wanted to be sure she wouldn’t let the tv interfere with her studies. (I can’t help being a helicopter parent from time to time.) I can’t worry about something that I can’t control.</p>