TV and Why We Love It

It is a widely accepted fact that Americans today are obsessed with television. Each one of us watches 2.8 hours a day on average, accounting for over half of our total daily leisure time activities, including socializing and exercising. 99% of American households possess at least one television. The average American child under the age of eighteen spends 1,600 minutes per week and 1500 hours per year watching television. To put these statistics in perspective, children spend about 3.5 minutes per week engaging in meaningful conversation and about 900 hours per year in school. When it comes to how Americans, and especially American youth spend their free time, watching television trumps all other activities.

I know that I, too, am guilty of spending hours upon hours in front of the television, watching almost every kind of show that exists between the thousands of channels available to me. I often find myself suffering from paralysis of my entire body, in that no matter how much time I have spent on the couch and regardless of what other, more important things I have to do, I simply cannot tear myself away from the endless entertainment that lies within the black rectangle in front of me. It’s safe to say that the majority of my friends and peers also have difficulty overcoming the addictiveness of television. And so I ask myself and anyone else who cares to join me in my quest for answers, why? Why has television so quickly become the most popular source for all things entertainment? Why is it so easy for us to drop everything in order to use our entire brains and our entire days to focus on something that isn’t even real? Why are we obsessed with TV?

Despite countless studies about why Americans love television, there has not been any scientific or proven reasons to explain the ever present addiction to TV that exists for people from toddlers to senior citizens. After careful reflection on my own television watching habits and the habits of others around me, I have developed a few theories that could account for all the hours spent in front of the television.

One reason that I think a lot of people enjoy watching TV is because it provides a simple escape from the stresses and problems of the real world. After an aggravating day of work, or a tiring day of school, we can just sit back, relax, and watch the show of our choice. Scripted or not, television shows offer us access to a world that is not like our own and this can be a relief to many people.

Scripted television can also give real people who watch it a sense of comfort about the world we live in. The characters often have few flaws, clichéd romances are in abundance, and almost everything works out in the end. In a society where all of these things are rare, tuning in to these shows can make people feel happier and more hopeful about their own lives.

I think that reality television, although quite different from most of the scripted shows on TV, is also watched to make the average person feel better about their own lives. The basis of these types of shows is not centered around flawless characters, timeless tales of love, or lessons learned. Reality TV shows are all about “real” people and their “real” lives. Reality television shows document anything from an average woman looking for love on The Bachelorette to groups of New Jersey housewives arguing over whose house is the biggest. And people watch because they can take in the ridiculousness of other people’s daily problems and feel a whole lot better about their own. In addition to this reason, it is also a fact that many Americans take pleasure in knowing everything there is to know about the people who networks such as E and Bravo have turned into celebrities. Face it: Americans have an unquenchable thirst for useless information about people whose importance is only justified through some unknown reason that motivated a producer to send a camera crew to follow them through their lives.

And my last reason that I have come up with for why we love TV so very much is that it connects us all. TV is the same. I can watch the same show here that a friend in Chicago, or Boston, or Los Angeles is watching. Rich or poor, young or old, well educated or not, the television that we have access to is the same. The entertainment that the majority of television shows offer is universal; each and every one of us can find pleasure in tuning in and watching the shows that we decide to watch. And then we can tweet about it, or blog about it, or discuss it via phone call, text message, Facebook, or email.  The reason we all love TV is because we all love TV. Despite any differences in personalities, opinions, religions, families, jobs, or location throughout the country, or even the world, the shows that we all tune in to at 8 pm eastern standard time are the same.

I think that we all should try a little harder to fight through our television induced paralysis and spend a little more time engaging in more meaningful and worthwhile activities. But I also think that indulging in some captivating and entertaining TV every so often isn’t something to be ashamed of. I suppose that no one will ever be able to prove why we watch so much TV, but I hope that the reasons I’ve offered can provide sufficient enough justification for America’s fixation with it.