October 2009 – Nielsen releases new finding on children’s TV usage during the last few months of 2008 (and it ain’t good news!).  In addition to time on computers, television usage is the highest it’s been in 8 years!  The following numbers include watching television shows, movies and playing video games in front of a television.

Kids ages 2 to 5 watched 32 hours per week (3 hours 47 minutes per day).
Kids ages 6 to 11 watched 28 hours per week (3 hours 20 minutes per day).

December 2008 – U.S. National Institute of Health – analyzing 30 years of research – announced that as kids watch more TV, they are more likely to be obese, smoke and achieve less in school.  Are we surprised?

In the U.S., we currently watch, on average, 142+ hours of TV every month, which comes out to about 4.5 hours per day.

Many of you have heard me say that I don’t watch much TV or that I can’t stand spending lots of time in front of the computer playing games and watching entertainment.  People often ask how I find time to write… well, this is how!  Sometimes people don’t believe me when I say that I’ve never seen a full episode of this or that.  Folks are surprised when they discover I don’t know who won the latest round of whatever or who said what to whom… The fact is, my television sits unplugged most of the time and there is no way I could ever write anything good with it on.  I don’t think TV is bad – I just think you have to be really careful not to spend too much time with it.  Here’s a log of my TV watching so you can see just how often I turn on the ‘tube’.

2010
Jan. 3rd – News – 1 hour
Jan. 28th – Nature Show – 2 hours
(It’s still OFF!)
Apr. 14 – News – Documentary – 3 hours
May 26th – Nada.  Haven’t missed it a bit.

Total TV Hours in 2010 =
6 hours
Average Hours Per Month in 2010 =
3 hours

2009
Jan. 20th – Inauguration – 2 hours
Jan. 23rd – Disney Channel – 1 hour
Feb. 2nd – News – 15 minutes
Feb. 6th – News – 2 hours
Mar. 1st – News – 2.5 hours
Mar. 18th – News – 1.5 hours
Apr. = No TV at all.
May 1st – Still haven’t turned it on!
May 9th – PBS – 1.5 hours
June 23rd – nothing yet…
June 25th – News 2 hours
July 16th – Documentary – 2 hours
Aug. 6th – Still unplugged!
Aug. 22nd – Nothing yet!  That’s 37 days with no TV!
Sept. 1st – Yeah!  That’s no TV since mid-July!
Sept. 13th – Documentary – 2 hours
Oct. 28 – Still unplugged!
Nov. 12th – Still unplugged!

Total TV Hours in 2009 =
16 hours and 45 minutes
Average Hours Per Month in 2009 =
1 hour and 40 minutes