TV Tracking

Alright, I said I would keep track for one week, so for Wednesday, 11/4/09 to 11/11/09, here's my rundown:

-1 hour of TV shows (11/5/09)

-5 hours of sports (a Suns game and some football on 11/8/09)

-6.5 hours on the computer (mostly Hulu)

-3 hours of movies (one full movie and the second half of another)

So, for one week, I watched 15.5 hours of TV. It doesn't seem like much, but when you really thinkg about it, I spent more than half a day watching TV in a one-week span. So, how'd you do this week?

TV: America's Babysitter

I'm still putting together my next series of posts on what the Bible teaches about work and rest, but I just had to post this startling news bit featured in the November 2nd edition of the Plugged-In Online newsletter:

"Children's television viewing is at an eight-year-high, according to the Nielsen Company's latest statistical parsing of Americans' TV habits. Kids ages 2 to 5 spend 32 hours a week parked in front of the tube, while 6- to 11-year-olds watch slightly less (28 hours). [mediapost.com, 10/26/09 stats]"

There are 168 hours in a week. According to this stat, on AVERAGE (meaning some kids view more, and some people view less), kids ages 2 to 5 are spending 19% of their time watching TV. That's nearly 1/5th of their time, and that includes the time they spend sleeping. 6 to 11 year olds are spending only slightly less at about 17% of their time, or roughly 1/6th. Just think about that for a bit. The leading reason why the 6 to 11 year olds spend less time watching TV? They go to school. That's it.

Go ahead and ponder that for a bit. Now, how much time do YOU spend watching TV? How about your kids? I challenge you to keep track of how much TV you watch this next week, then take a look at how much time was spent watching TV (no, I don't think watching TV is by default just "wasting time", but when done to excess, that's EXACTLY what it becomes). I'll do the same and report back next Tuesday.