In addition to obvious things like more time for learning and self-improvement, it also helped my self-esteem to stop exposing myself to commercials designed to make me feel like I need a bunch of products to be "good enough".

That was never really a problem for me. I'd say the time thing is the problem. Watching anime or movies on my laptop isn't as enjoyable as on a TV, so I do less. (I waste a ton of time on IRC and websites, absolutely, so it's not as if I replaced "watching TV" with "making the world a better place" - but I'd say those're a better waste of time than TV.)