From The Economist by way of The Everyday Minimalist and Zen Habits.
KILL YOUR TELEVISION
This entry was posted on 09/27/2009 at 11:38 am and is filed under simple living with tags linkage, television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Tiny Ouroboros 
09/27/2009 at 12:05 pm
That’s… disgusting.
09/27/2009 at 5:41 pm
And it’s PER DAY. Which means the average number of hours Americans watch TV in a day is equal to the theoretical number of hours Americans spend at work. And people wonder why they “don’t have time” anymore!
09/27/2009 at 5:54 pm
There isn’t enough decent programming to fill eight hours. Hmmm….if eight is the average, and there’s people like you and I that really lower that average, I’d hate to see the people who bring it up. However, I also wonder if it’s counting, say, watching TV while doing laundry and the like. Much like how I listen to podcasts while sorting my closet into packed, to trash, and to donate boxes. I could do the same with TV, especially with documentaries and the like wherein the audio is the important part.
09/29/2009 at 7:21 am
wow. scary stuff. I do agree that this probably includes the time that the TV is on (who would admit in a survey that they watch 8+ hours/day? it must be some electronic counter in the TV recording this info), but whatever happened to old fashioned conversations? Or if people are burned out from talking and texting all day on their cell, perhaps a bit of silence would be best!
09/29/2009 at 9:40 am
Considering my roommate just went through a weekend marathon of TV, I don’t know how they do it. I can’t sit still and watch for even a half hour, much less the entire weekend. And I find my days busy enough without TV. But that may be why I also find time to cook, walk to places, read copious amounts of books, all while working two jobs.
12/12/2009 at 7:02 pm
I wonder if this includes time spent playing video games. While it’s still sedentary screen based activity, you are at least involved, and it’s theoretically possible for it to be a social activity. Since I got too old to appreciate saturday morning cartoons, I have yet to ever find more than 3 hours of tv worth watching on any given day, but if I didn’t have a kid, wasn’t in school, and had someone to clean the house for me, I could see myself spending 5 hours a day on video games.
12/13/2009 at 12:52 pm
I couldn’t find details on how exactly the study was taken. I don’t really count video games as TV, for the same reason you pointed out…you have to be involved. I occasionally watch a Star Trek rerun or an episode of the Colbert Report, but other than that my TV is merely a monitor for my PS2.
01/15/2010 at 6:04 pm
Fuck the TV, and if you watch it, you’re part of the problem.