In September 2005, Nielsen Media Research, Inc. reported that Americans watched an average of 4 hours 32 minutes of television per day. Amazingly, very few alarm bells went off in America, warning of the potential consequences of this insane amount of time. Thank about what that little fact means. 4 hours 32 minutes per day. 4 hours 32 minutes EVERY day. 4 hours 32 minutes EVERY day for 365 days per year. Lets add that up. Maybe 4 hours and 32 minutes does not seem like that much time at first. However, per week that adds up to 31 hours 44 min. That is 31 hours 44 min. EVERY week. For adults, that is starting to get close to a full time job. For children, that also means they are being educated by their TV sets more than they are being educated at school. Per month that adds up to 136 hours, or 5 days 16 hours. The average American spends five and 2/3 solid days every month watching TV. Are these numbers starting to look a little alarming yet? Lets look at the time one average American spends watching TV every year. 365 days at 4 hours 32 minutes every day adds up to 1,655.8 hours every year. That is 69 days, or over two solid months every year. Over a lifetime of 72 years, that adds up to over 13 years. That is a lot of time, and that is just for one person. Consider the effects on society as a whole. Using the CIAs statistics for the US population (295,734,134), 4 hours 32 minutes adds up to 1.33 billion hours devoted to the tube EVERY day. It is 498.67 billion hours per year. Try to imagine that many hours of flickering TV sets. Forget all the studies that link excessive TV watching to the obesity epidemic. Forget the studies that link excessive TV watching to ADHD symptoms and other attention problems. Forget about all the problems with violent content and the 18,000 TV murders that kids witness before they turn 18. Forget about the sexual content and the fact that sexual references on TV have doubled over the past 8 years. Forget about the studies that showed viewers slip into a hypnotic alpha brainwave state when they are watching TV. Do not even think about the fact that EACH hour of TV has about 32 commercials. Just think about how much time you have spent watching TV over the past year and what else you could have accomplished with that time. Think about how much time your family has spent watching TV over the past year and how that time could have been better spent. Think about all the time that is being sucked into the TV sets throughout America every day and every year, and how many of society's problems could have been solved with that amount of time. Then imagine what could happen if you, your family, and the rest of the country suddenly stopped watching TV. Source:
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/newsreleases/2005/AvgHoursMinutes92905.pdf |
