32 Hours, What?!
32 hours. That’s the amount of TV people in my demo (18-34) watch EACH WEEK - and surprisingly, the numbers are even higher for kids and families younger than me. so i wanna know - how is this possible, and who are these people that have 32 hours to spare?! that’s almost an entire week of work spent just in front of the TV. sure, i’m sure some people are skewing the results by constantly having the TV on in the background and what-not, but even if you watch eight hours of TV each weekend day, that’s still more than three hours you’d have to watch each weekday. i can see watching a DVD every now and then, or vegging out on your favorite show, but THREE HOURS is still a lot, and that’s assuming you’re spending ALL DAY saturday and sunday doing nothing but watching TV.
now, i’m probably not the person to talk to about this since i don’t even have a TV. when people find this out, they always look at me kind of dumbfounded and ALWAYS ask, “what do you DO?” maybe these are the people watching 32 hours each week. i’m not completely blameless, b/c we do have a computer with some of our favorite shows, and we do watch DVD’s. but i just don’t think in terms of flipping the TV on just to see what’s airing. I have far too many other interests i’m always trying to find time for, TV is kind of an afterthought, like if i wanna veg for 20 minutes at the end of the day.
so what DO i do? i write, a LOT. some of it is for me, for projects i’m working on. some of it is for companies i’m freelancing for - and if you think of it in terms of having an extra 32 hours a week, that’s a helluva lot of extra money from freelance jobs. i’m a member of the junior league. i volunteer. i read. i spend a lot of time with friends. i belong to groups that focus on things i’m interested in, like writing and producing. i go to the gym a lot. i take yoga. and belly dance. and ballet. and at the end of the (sometimes really long) days, i feel really good about all that - which is MUCH more than i can say for myself if i’m hanging out in front of the TV.
oh, and while we’re on the subject, probably more disturbing to me - what are KIDS AND FAMILIES doing spending more than 32 hours watching TV? i hate to be all “when-i-was-growing-up-and-we-walked-to-school-in-the-snow” but when i was growing up (i didn’t much live in places that snowed, but) i sure as hell wasn’t watching even three or two hours of TV a week. if we did all our chores on time we were allowed to pick the 1/2 hour of TV we wanted to watch on saturday mornings. that was it. 1/2 hour. and whatever educational programming my parents made us watch. so i have to ask, where are these kids’ parents?? and how much TV are these kids going to be watching when THEY’RE 18-34?