TURN-IT-OFF.com

about Turn-it-Off

 

Turn-it-Off is an anti-television, pro-reading web site. It doesn’t mean, “Never watch television!” it means, “You’re watching way too much television.” Unfortunately that goes for most people.

According to Nielsen Media Research the average American watches over 30 hours/week of television. Personally I think they’re low-balling here; it’s too too easy to watch more than 40hours/week. And that is a problem.

Time Spent

I’ve tried in the past explaining this but the point is so important I’m going to make it as simple as possible:

A 65-year-old man is equal to being alive for 569,400 hours.

Let’s evaluate his viewing habits from age 18, even though children and teenagers obviously do watch lots of television.

We now have 411,720 hours to work with (47 years).

According to Nielsen Media Research the mean average of TV viewing time is 30 hours a week. (The viewing time actually increases as the person gets older. At the 55+ age group it zooms up to 42 hours/week.)

If our 65-year-old man watches 30 hours a week of television then in 47 years he’ll have watched 73,320 hours of television.

One year (365 days) equals 8,760 hours. Our subject has watched in 47 years approximately 8.4 years of television. He spent 18% of his life watching television! (Commercials take btwn ¼ to 1/3 of that time. Meaning approximately up to 2.5 years of commercials alone.)

Another 25% of his time sleeping. Another 33% working at his 8-hour/day job. That’s 76%, 3/4ths of his life, doing absolutely NOTHING !!

Understand this: our subject sat on a couch accomplishing not a blessed thing for 8.4 years non-stop. This 65-year-old man is equal in age to a 73-year-old man who actually did something with his life. And I’ll wager any amount that the 73-year-old is healthier, more alert, not certainly but most likely better off financially, and has many more gratifying life experiences to speak of.

You’re 65 and you’ve watched television programs of poor content and years of commercials! You have not lived a life!

Talk about “there’s never enough time to get stuff done”. You just wasted 8 good years where you could have accomplished something. And I don’t mean a cure for cancer (though that would be nice). I mean spending more time with your wife, kids, family, Friends. You could have traveled or learned a foreign language – anything.

A person who spends 1/5 of their life doing anything would be thought obsessive:

• If a girl who enjoyed gymnastics spent 4-5 hours/day on the uneven bars, her friends would be in awe of her passion, assuming her preparation for the Olympics.
• If a man, instead of hanging with the guys and drinking at the bar watching football games, stayed home to tend his stamp collection 4 hours a day, the guys would definitely think him a geek or a loser.
• And unless you’re an artist, no one can understand how a person can spend 4-5 hours/day practicing their painting, or music lessons, &c.

But somehow it’s okay to be sitting in front of the TV for hours at a time watching sitcoms, sports events, talk-television, realityTV, and movies. It makes NO sense!

If you have a friend that is overweight, do you allow him to continue eating tons of junk food, his health deteriorating, and never say anything? If you’re a real Friend, then of course you don’t. So why allow those you know and care about sit all day doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and becoming nothing? This is my main motivation for this web site.

 

Any comments, criticisms, contributions, suggestions - please contact: glenn@turn-it-off.com