Television usage is on the rise in households across the United States, and the trend towards watching television in ever-increasing amounts shows no signs of stopping. However, just how much time do Americans spend watching television? What kind of images are children seeing on tv, and are their parents happy about it? Is watching television taking a bite out of our lives, or making them better? These television usage facts, and statistics on tv watching in the United States, will shed some light on these questions. If you’re curious about the effect that watching television has on individual Americans, and on the United States as a whole, read on to learn the facts about television usage. In this article, you’ll learn about the television usage habits of the average American individual, how much time kids spend watching television (and what they’re seeing), and what Americans really think about the amount of television that’s in their lives.
Television Usage Of The Average American Adult
With the diverse population of the United States, and the many and varied lifestyles of its citizens, there may not really be an “average American.” However, in the world of statistics the average American is alive and well, and at any given moment, the average American is quite likely to be watching television. According to Nielsen research, the average American has television usage habits that include watching television for more than 4 hours every day. That works out to more than one full day a week (28 hours) spent watching television. If you figure that amount over a year, the average American spends the equivalent of two whole months out of every year watching television. An individual with average television usage practices who is living in the United States will spend roughly one out of every six years of his or her adult life watching television. A United States citizen with average television usage habits, and who enjoys a life span of 65 years or longer, will have spent a total of over 9 whole years in front of the tv!
Over four thousand scientific studies in psychology, sociology, and other disciplines have studied the results of watching television on children, and with the high levels of television usage among kids in the United States, it’s little wonder that so much research is taking place. The television usage habits of children stack up to a nation-wide average of roughly 1,680 minutes of television watching per week per child. That means kids in the United States are keeping up with their parents when it comes to television usage. It also means that many children spend far more time watching television than they spend doing anything else. The hours of television usage in an American kid’s year (1500) is substantially larger than the hours a child in the United States spends in school (900), and no other activities in an American kid’s year come close.
What Are The Effects Of All This Television Usage?
So, now that we know how much time people in the United States spend watching television, and we know that it is a lot, one can’t help but wonder about the effect that all this television usage is having on individuals, and on the nation as a whole. Well, the scientific research on the psychological results of watching television is still inconclusive, but we do know a few things about the effects of television usage, and about what the population of the United States really thinks about tv. We know that most Americans (79%) feel that watching television with violent content helps “precipitate real life mayhem.” We also know the number of violent acts a child with average television usage habits sees while watching television. By the time an American kid is 18, he or she has seen 200,000 televised acts of violence. No wonder most parents in the United States (73%) would like to limit how much time their kids spend watching television. But worries about violent content aren’t the only reason why parents worry about the television usage habits of kids: in a survey of parents, 92% of respondents reported that they felt that tv commercials aimed at children make kids too materialistic. So, are American parents as hard on themselves about television usage as they’d like to be on their kids? Not quite. Recent data shows that when asked if they were watching too much television in their daily lives, 49% of Americans answered yes. That means one out of every two Americans doesn’t feel completely in control of his or her television usage habits, and that can’t be good.
