Thursday, July 01, 2010

The Evil TV

Everyone complains about how much TV kids watch -- but it turns out that the elderly watch even more of the damn thing.
Adults over 65 reported spending three times more of their waking hours watching TV than did younger adults. Older adults did not seem to experience the same “stress buffering” effects that younger adults did from watching TV, and TV use among older adults – unlike time spent on other leisure activities, such as socializing or physical exercise – was related to lower life satisfaction.

Data from other studies indicate that the average American household spends 4.5 hours watching TV per day and, in those over age 65, about 25% percent of their time is spent watching TV.
I wonder how these number would suss out if you included total screen time, or at least time(TV+online videos).

Sometimes I think you can date the beginning of the decline of civilization (which I'd put at 1955 to 1975) as due to television, and how it ruined neighborhoods and families -- pulling people indoors, away from their porches and their neighbors, and even away from their family members. People haven't involved to really care or understand what is going on across the country or across the world -- we have lost a sense of community and television directly contributes to that.

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