Neilsen reported last week that the average American watches 151 hours of television a month. We get 720 hours for every 30-day month. If you work full-time, 176 of those hours go to work. If you sleep 8 hours a night, you’ve spent another 240 hours. After sleep, work and television we have 153 hours left for everything else.
Is watching television the third most important thing we do? Probably not. But that’s the lesser question. The greater question: What aren’t we doing with those 151 hours we’re spending consuming television?
Well, at very least every one of us could have a second job. Presuming that job was of the retail variety, that’s an extra $10k annually (post taxes) you could bring home. Of course if you have a professional skill, you could work more at a higher rate. If that was the case then you may only work the 51 hours – still leaving yourself 100 extra hours – and bring home an extra $15k-$30k post-taxes (based on $30/hr – $75/hr).
Say work isn’t your thing. (I did say it was the least you could do.)
You could write books. Learn to play an instrument. Play sports. Teach your kids to fly a kite, yo-yo, ride a bike and throw a boomerang. Garden. Paint. Serve your neighbors, and your neighbors’ neighbors. Maybe you’d be terrible. But I promise you wouldn’t be worse than you are right now, and at least then you’d know.
Instead we’ve deemed it acceptable that everyone would trade all of that activity for the right to pay to consume entertainment.
I don’t have issues with entertainment. Or even passive entertainment. In fact I watched part of an episode of BBC’s Life this morning with my kids. But to think of 21% of my life, or 21% of the life of any of my friends, would go to the soul-dampering consumption of one-directional televised entertainment is sad.
What would you do if I offered you 20% more life? What would I do? I don’t know. I do know that while I don’t watch anywhere near 151 hours of television, I watch enough to know I am missing so much to gain absolutely nothing.
