Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

Addiction #18 – Freedom from TV
“I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on, I go into another
room & read a good book.” ~ Groucho Marx
The Radio Corporation of America started manufacturing and distributing color
television sets on March 25, 1954, helping to usher in “a wonderful world of color.”
Since that time, the number of households with TVs has steadily risen. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, the number of homes with television sets increased from 87% in
1960 to over 99% in 2011, with the average American family owning almost 3
televisions! That’s over 250 million televisions owned and watched in the U.S. alone.
And yet it is not the statistics of TV ownership that are unsettling, as much as the
statistics related to our TV usage. Consider the following statistics (based on U.S. Census
data and the Nielsen report of 2011) …
*The average American (including both adults & teenagers) watches over four hours of
TV every day, which is over two months of uninterrupted watching per year. This means
that – at current usage-rates, the average 65 year-old American will have spent 9 years of
his or her life idly sitting in front of a television!
*In another recent survey, 80% of toddlers (ages: infant to 6 years) were found to
regularly use screen media (TV, movies &/or video games). 77% of them could turn a
television on by themselves, and 67% of them could access a particular program or surf
channels using a remote control … In addition, 30% of those families polled admitted
that their pre-toddlers (children under the age of two) have a TV in their room.
*Over 70% of all American daycare centers use television with their charges every day,
and this despite several studies clearly showing that such screen time is severely
detrimental to all children under the age of three.
*Over two-thirds of all American families with children watch television while eating
dinner “together”.
*The average American child spends roughly 28 hours each week watching television. In
contrast, the average American parent spends only roughly 5 minutes each week in
meaningful conversation with those same children.
*TV is so tempting that over half of all 4-6 year olds polled preferred watching television
to spending quality time with their fathers.
*The average American child spends roughly 900 hours per year in school. In contrast,
the average American child spends over 1500 hours a year watching television.
*The U.S. Department of Labor reported in September 2004 that watching TV ranked
third in the average American’s total daily use of time, behind only working and sleeping.
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