For the past 2-3 years, my stepfather has been majorly addicted to streaming Netflix, especially after he lost his job. He lost his job back in 2006, and really didn't have anything to do besides some minor hobbies and watching movies. He can't really do much of anything that involves physical activity, as he is over 350 pounds, and even walking is hard for him, let alone jogging. About 2-3 years ago, he discovered streaming Netflix and ever since then has devoted at least 50% of his waking hours to watching movies and TV shows. As some of you may know, streaming Netflix uses up quite a bit of bandwidth, especially if your family can't afford incredible internet service. At the moment, Netflix makes any online games impossible to play, a ten minute YouTube video takes forever to load, and even basic web browsing is ridiculously slow. Our internet can only really handle one large thing (Netflix) at a time, or 3-4 medium things (World of Warcraft/League of Legends/Guild Wars 2/etc...) or even 6-8 small things (YouTube videos). Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against streaming Netflix, I think it's great, but the problem comes in when at least 50% of the day is taken up by Netflix being used. I say at least because not only does my stepfather watch it excessively, but because of him, my 5 year old sister was also introduced to it about 2 years ago, and she spends 20% of her day watching her shows, whether it be Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, or another, similar children's show. Now, I've never really been a fan of Children her age watching the amount of Television that she does, and she is already needing Glasses for her nearsightedness, which I think is at least partially due to the amount of TV she watches.
Getting back on topic here, I can't really take the TV away from either of them for any length of time. If I kindly ask them to let me use the internet for an hour, my sister will pout and tell my mom that I'm not sharing or whatnot, and I end up getting scolded. Same thing with my stepdad, except less pouting and going to mom, and more self advocacy. Either way, the result is the same. The Netflix pattern goes on from 8 AM (Or earlier sometimes) until 11 PM (Also varies between 10 and 12).
Can anyone give me any advice as to how I can deal with this???