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Below average
By sandi | March 4, 2009
This morning as I was drinking my Starbucks coffee I read the side of the cup. It stated that Americans spend about 29 hours a week watching TV. That is 4.14 hours per day or 13 years in a lifetime. I was struck by this and looked it up on the Internet. Seems that is old data and the new reports suggest that it is actually over 5 hours each day!
This is one time when I am okay with being below average. My kids would love it if I allowed them to watch that much TV. I honestly don’t even think our TV is on that much total for all the programs we all watch. My kids generally watch around 3 hours a day and I watch maybe 2.
Now of course our family probably spends far more time on the Internet than the average family. Even the girls spend more than the average 5 year olds.
I think it all comes down to what you value and how you balance it all. I personally can’t stand to have the TV running in the background and since I am the one home all the time I am sure that contributes to our situation. Surfing the internet is not much different than watching TV. People will claim that you are learning things you are reading about but you aren’t learning that much more. Don’t get me wrong—brains need down time and you certainly need an outlet for that. For me it just isn’t TV.
Are you below or above the average on this one?
Topics: Mom's Soap Box | 3 Comments »
March 4th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
FIVE hours a DAY?? Holy cow- do these people not work? have friends? go to the gym? YIKES!
Lets see- I watch the news (30-60 min), Oprah (1 hr), and usually one-two shows (30 min-2 hrs). Hmmm…
So on a BAD night I watch 4 hours of TV though with TIVO it’s probably closer to 3 actual hours in front of the box (no commercials saves SO much time).
Granted that’s more than I thought but still under average. (phew!)
March 4th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
TV is a guilty pleasure for me. I love to just be a couch potato, but I feel guilty the whole time. I know there are better ways for me to spend my time. And now with Ian…I really want to minimize the TV he watches. So we watch a DVR of Sesame Street as we are waking up (We cuddle for a few minutes and then I sneak away for coffee, computer time, quick clean-ups and getting breakfast on the table.) I try not to turn on the TV for the rest of the day, but sometimes I just want to veg. So in the morning Channel 8 goes on after Sesame Street, or I will watch a DVR of Oprah or one of my Thursday night shows (Grays Anatomy, Private Practice, ER, Ugly Betty). Kyle and I watch 30 Rock, House & Fringe together some weekend night after Ian goes to sleep. So I guess adding that up, we watch about 15 hours per week of TV shows. Kyle has a few others he records and watches periodically…I don’t keep track of those. (We used to record a lot more, but we felt like we were getting behind. So we deleted a lot – Lost, Heros were among them.) Also when we are really tired in the evening. We will let Ian pick a kids movie and we watch parts of it with him and surf the internet/talk. Ian really loves TV it is an instant babysitter, he will sit still and watch a full length movie. Which is nice to get stuff done…but I really hate the long term (possible) ramifications. So the guilt gets to me and I try to avoid using TV. On a rough week there is more TV. (Sorry I ended up writing a book in my comments…but you invited a poll and apparently I am talkative tonight.)
March 5th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Sadly, probably average. Even more sadly, I’m the only one in my house! I watch it all on the DVR, never live since I can’t stand commercials!! LOL! My husband barely watches TV and either do my older boys. Most days, they watch none! Biscuit would probably sit in front of kid’s shows alllll day if I let him!