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You Are Still Watching a Staggering Amount Of TV Every Day (recode.net)
Peter Kafka, reporting for Recode:TV! It's cooked! Toast! Doneso. Ready for the fork. Except not yet, because Americans are still watching a ton of TV, every day. For some of them, it's the equivalent of a full-time job. The average American watches an astonishing 4.5 hours of TV a day, according to a new report from Nielsen. Add in DVR time, and that number gets up to 5 hours a day. That usage is shrinking over time -- a couple of years ago, Americans were averaging five hours and twenty-three minutes a day.Nielsen's data also shows that people are now consuming more content on their smartphone devices than ever. Compared to just 47 minutes usage in 2014, it is now up to one hour and 39 minutes.
In before this guy posts:
http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel-429
If I'm lucky, I have enough downtime to actually sit and watch a whole hour a day, and that's while I'm eating dinner. If I didn't have a DVR, it wouldn't even be that much. Where is it that anyone these days hase 4.5 hours of free time to sit in front of a television?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Does that count people like me? I work from home and i turn the TV on in the morning but it gets ignored all day, i just like having some background music/noise.
The headline would appear to direct the assessment it makes about those who read the article, but I read the story and I only watch about 5 hours a week. I may not be typical, but then the headline still uses the second person pronoun.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What the heck does this have to do with the Digital Equipment Corporation?
The fact of the matter is that they have been struggling for years to keep pace with the barrage of new video consumption choices Americans have. They still don't have a handle on it. And there are many in the broadcast/cable industry who uphold they never really had a good grasp (Those diaries! seriously...?) of who was watching what. Their customers are the broadcasters, not, say YouTube channels or Twitch feeds, so they will always have that bias...
but not "watching" it. background/white noise.
Please stop generalizing.
I pretty much have no idea what's going on in the world of media. I can't even name one movie that's in theatres. And I fucking LOVE IT.
my wife hates it and wants them to watch story based TV shows. but now that i remember i didn't much like that crap in the 80's either. it was just mindless time killing because we only had a few channels and no choice what to watch
There is some amazing content being put on Youtube these days. Watching various makers and machinists on youtube is fascinating stuff for some of us. Or the guy building a 74-foot steel chinese junk in Oklahoma! Between them and the science channels I track, I watch about 30 minutes of youtube each evening.
I also often watch episodes of classic TV shows in the evening, British and American, often from various internet sources.
That does add up, though. Maybe 30-60 minutes a day. Not sure what people are watching to get 4.5 hours a day though! What's actually on TV these days?
Editors: You have no clue as to what "Digital" or DEC even has to do with technology. Take two minutes and read Wikipedia article first. This is doing nothing but insulting your dwindling reader base.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
And I'm watching it commercial free (so that's a 25% reduction in view time right there) and horror of horrors I fast through the boring obvious bits and the "okay we get where you are going" parts. I've also been known to watch things at faster playback speeds.
I would be really interesting to see some sort of demographic break down on those TV numbers regarding things like income level, geographical location, employment, etc. I have a gut feeling that TV viewing has gone up in some demographics and down in others. Honestly I don't even know many people who watch more than 4.5 hours of TV a week much less a day. But most of my friends play video games instead of watch tv so it's not like we have any stones to throw about sitting on the couch to much.
Yesterday, the average American watched 3 hours of TV per day. Today, it's 4.5 hours. They both can't be right, so which is it?
The fact of the matter is that they have been struggling for years to keep pace with the barrage of new video consumption
choices Americans have.
Streaming services like Netflix have a perfect idea as to what people are watching. But I have a vague recollection that they don't publicly release their stats.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Q: So, how do you know if a guy doesn't have a TV?
A. Don't worry, he'll let you know.
Seriously, though, lots of us "Don't have a TV" (like me), but I still watch a couple hours of it a day. Except without commercials.
Due to automation, offshoring, and commie nations subsidizing their labor to keep workers from rioting; more Americans are idle. This probably results in more total TV time.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that TV is not gradually being replaced by Internet and social networking, it just means there is a bigger pie of idle time, and a slice of roughly the same percent (TV) will grow bigger regardless.
(I personally believe "helicopter money" (HM) theory is the best economic solution to try get more working, being inflation is under-par, meaning production resources are underutilized, but HM is politically risky because the opposition will sell it as "cheating".)
Table-ized A.I.
I had completely written off normal OTA TV until recently.
Here is my entertainmentflow these days:
- Is there anything in my Hulu queue?
- Is there any episodes left in my current series binge on Netflix or Amazon?
- Is there any good PBS shows on OTA (Frontline, Downton Abby, etc)?
- Watch Buzzr (old game shows) on OTA and play WoW
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Those assholes came to my door once asking if I would like to be a "Nielsen" household. They went over the details, and even offered money for the bother.
Let me tell you, whatever they offer, it is not worth it. They come in and connect a comm closet full of equipment to your TV so they can intercept whatever video is being fed to your TV. That would be fine, except their equipment causes all kinds of compatibility issues. They also insist on installing their software on any PC you watch streaming services on. That would also be fine, except their software also collects your non-media browsing habits, and has a keylogger so I can only assume they steal your passwords as well (I only installed their SW in a virtual machine).
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I told these guys that I rarely watch TV. Perhaps once every couple of weeks when I'm too tired to do something more valuable with my time.
If you don't watch TV for 24 hours, the phone rings. If you don't watch TV for 48 hours, the phone rings every 30 minutes until you answer. They harass you CONSTANTLY to watch more TV. After 5 days they actually send someone to your home to find out why you're not watching TV.
When you _are_ watching TV, you have to hit control buttons on their box every half an hour or so, or the harassment increases.
After about 2 weeks I called them up and told them to come get their shit off my front porch.
Trump! It's cooked! Toast! Doneso. Ready for the trump. Except not yet, because trumps are still watching a ton of Trump, every day. For some of them, it's the equivalent of a full-time trump. The average trump watches an astonishing 4.5 hours of Trump a day, according to a new report from trump. Add in trump time, and that number gets up to 5 hours a day. That trump is shrinking over time -- a couple of years ago, trumps were averaging five hours and twenty-three minutes a day.
So we watch a lot of TV. It's the contemporary equivalent to sitting around the campfire. Sometimes you tell stories, sometimes you drink a beer, sometimes you just sit quietly with your fellow tribe members. So what?
I'm not watching a staggering amount of TV, I'm playing a staggering amount of FPSes.
I concur. I just got done watching a fascinating NOVA series on human evolution.
Upright walking apes seem to have had been around for roughly 4 million years, at least, with small chimp-like brains and NOT using (shaped) stone tools. They probably still used trees to escape from predators. There were several species and it was a viable niche; and for 4 million years these creatures remained mostly as-is.
But around 2 million years ago the climate of Africa started swinging wildly. This appears to have favored bigger brains and stone-tool-makers, and stone tools and larger brains began appearing in the fossil record. Thus, ironically, humans appear to be the product of climate change. (Brains are metabolically expensive, so big brains have to justify themselves.)
Table-ized A.I.
I don't know what I count as. I only willingly watch maybe a couple of movies per week, so 3-5 hours. However, the kids usually watch a little around dinner time, and the wife has it on almost constantly from 7-11 p.m. I try to ignore it, but if I'm in the room I'll find myself staring at it some and struggling to get other things done. Call me a TV hostage, I guess?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
You can stream or download every TV show there is, ad-free. I suspect Nielsen is measuring all the always-on TVs that bars use to generate background noise, and the ones that hospitals and nursing homes force on their inmates to keep them silent.
Exactly right, Netflix does not reveal it, and why should they? And HBO knows exactly how many people are watching their shows through HBO Go. The content owners of the so-called Over-The-Top distribution of video programming have a granular and Nielsen-free handle on those numbers.
The normal
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
...because more people are watching videos on Netflix and Amazon, skipping the ads. Since there are about 20 minutes of ads per hour, I'd guess that the time spent watching actual CONTENT is UP.
You do understand that an average of 4.5 hours a day means that out of six people, one has the set on 24 hours a day, and the other nine have it on for an hour a day.
And I know some of those people who have the thing on 24 hours a day. I don't think that they even know where the off switch is-- I don't think they even know that it has an off switch
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Plenty of people watch various net videos like youtube or porn, but dont consider it television.
I number about 5-6 hours a day from 7 onwards. But hear me out!
Even though I am watching 5-6 hours of TV most week days, I am also doing at least 2 or more things in the same hour.
Whether it is exercise, programming, drawing, reading news and forums, playing games or general learning.
I live every hour after 7 with multiple activities according to a very basic schedule program I wrote. (flexible, not strict, that would be boring)
It really isn't hard.
TV is such a passive thing. As is my semi-automated schedule system.
Even shows you need to actively acknowledge to follow the plot aren't too hard to watch while doing something else that is low-impact on thinking, such as sketching, simple games, exercise and similar.
Have fun being my blog for today.
Weekend is reserved for whatever. Family. Friends. Fully focused sessions from the ol' schedule.
I mean, right now I am watching Stargate SG-1 re-runs and eating my dinner. Oh, and checking here.
Pilau rice, lamb, 2 bits of pizza left from last night. I was going to add some bell peppers in, but I was lazy. Will have them later as a snack with the rest of the rice I cooked too much of.
Later, I will continue writing down notes for some food I am going to experiment with next week since I want to spice things up.
Spend time with family for an hour or two.
Come on voice chat and spend time with friends, playing some games for an hour or two.
Get on to the drawing stuff I have to do.
Then do some yoga and exhaustive exercise towards bed time while still watching stuff and reading about the funnier side of the current shitastrophe that is UK leaving the EU. Fun times. (don't worry, I actually have things redshifted and dim. I can science)
A 9-5 average could do it just as well, maybe an hour or two less depending on family calls and/or travel time. (such as taking kids to school every day, or one or few times a week if you cycle on a school run with other parents)
With some order and consistency in your life, you could probably gain them back.
Some simply won't if you have a long travel time to work. Consider moving house or jobs, that isn't healthy or efficient no matter how much money you get!
NO amount of money is worth the time for you, your family, your friends and your health.
As good as we think our medical systems are, they won't reverse years of damage, stress, disconnected and negative emotions effects on your mentality and overall health, etc. DON'T DO IT MAN, DON'T DO IT!
And the biggest and most important thnig you should consider: it will never get you that time back.
I did it and life has never been better. Just do your research. Thoroughly!
Young people => no tv. Old people => stuck before their tv. No surprise. This is also why the average lower with time : old people aren't eternal and youngling do not pick up their tv habits.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
You sign the contract and agree to all that shit, but they're the bunch of assholes.
Smarter than average, my ass.
oh man, and how
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Me? No. The general public? Okay fine.
Better headline: You probably hate personalized "you ___" headlines that are wrong about you, so we will stop
(article simply says "Sorry.")
I have 3-4 hours after work. Total! I divide that between TV, Internet, feeding my face, and other crap. I probably see about an hour or 2 of TV, and that includes Netflix.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I just have it on as background noise. The cat is watching it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Not to mention Nielsen ratings are only valid for the demographic that participates in Nielsen ratings.
There's more to the consumption pie than the Nielson participants can possibly represent.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Who the hell has time for that?
As a average it sounds terrible, I suppose some people have the TV on from the time they come home until they go to bed?
You -
Done. Fuck clickbait. Humanity is not a single homogenous mass. We are all individuals (except that guy).
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
But I spend too much time on Slashdot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How about the following?
Collectively, Americans Still Watch a Staggering Amount Of TV Every Day
Yeah, it's not perfect either, but the original version is already wrong after the first word.
Couldn't stupidity pinch its wee-wee for three whole words until we get to "watch"—whatever that actually means when the viewer is sitting on the couch with a baby, an iPhone, an iPad, some weed, and a small stack of medical disability claim forms.
I'm still watching a lot of TV, but I'm streaming most of it over the internet, and 20% of it is porn anyway...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
because only 0.00001% of humanity actually has something original to offer the world. the rest are sheeple. say baaaaaaaaaa....
I've seen american TV. There isn't 4.5 hours of watchable stuff in a day.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Too cool to notice that saying you only have time to watch an hour of TV a day implies that you have a TV, meaning that your comment was actually irrelevant.
I don't know if it's more or less pathetic if you're this mistakenly self-satisfied in real life.
What really impressed me is that the stat is 4.5 hours of LIVE TV. I occasionally watch the local news while eating breakfast... that averages to maybe 30 minutes per week. That's the only time I ever watch live TV. With DVRs, and netflix / various internet options, I can very rarely find a compelling reason to watch live TV.
The only other time I watched something live was the presidential debates, but that was streamed from the internet. I don't know what category that should fall in.
watch != engaged.
I often turn the TV on while I'm making dinner or puttering about...
In another recent post here, the summary says "The average American watches three hours of TV each day", but here it says 4.5. That Game of Thrones finale must've really did a number on the average.
none. nix. nien. nyet. nil. non. aucun
Haven't turned a television on in at least three weeks. I'm glad someone is picking up my slack.
Then, I had a child, and all of my TV viewing is gone. For the past 3 years, I have gotten [maybe] about an hour to an hour and a half a day.