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Connected To The Matrix: Americans Spend Most Of Their Waking Hours Staring At A Television Or Computer Screen

2-8-2018 < SGT Report 82 725 words
 

by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:


Before televisions and computers were invented, Americans didn’t spend any time staring at television and computer screens. They worked hard, raised their families, personally interacted with their communities (remember that?), and generally tried to make the world a better place. But now for many of us, the “virtual world” actually seems more real than the “real world” does. In fact, as you will see below, average Americans now spend most of their waking hours staring at a screen. We have willingly connected ourselves to “the matrix”, and the amount of time spent connected is rising with each passing year. A report that was just put out by Nielsen found that we spend an average of 11 hours per dayinteracting with media




Americans now spend most of their waking hours watching TV, listening to music, using apps on their smartphones, or otherwise consuming media, a new study finds.


US adults are spending more than 11 hours a day on average—or about two-thirds of their waking time—consuming media in some form, Nielsen showed in its first-quarter 2018 report on US media consumption today (July 31). It measured, based on its representative panels of TV, radio, and digital households and consumers, activities like watching TV and DVDs, listening to the radio, visiting apps on a smartphone or tablet, and using the internet and game consoles.



No wonder we don’t have time to do anything else.


The time Americans spent interacting with various forms of media was up 19 minutes over the previous quarter, and here is how it broke down…


Watching live television: 4 hours, 10 minutes


Watching time-shifted television: 36 minutes



App/Web on a smartphone: 2 hours, 22 minutes


App/Web on a tablet: 47 minutes


Internet on a computer: 39 minutes


Listening to the radio: 1 hour, 46 minutes


Internet connected device: 26 minutes


Game console: 14 minutes


DVD/Blu-Ray device: 6 minutes


It really surprised me how little time Americans spend watching DVDs. I suppose that since everything is going digital that DVDs will someday be relics of a bygone age, but we aren’t there quite yet.


Another surprising thing from the report was the difference in behavior between the generations. According to Nielsen, older Americans actually spend the most time consuming media…



Though older generations generally spend the most time with media (adults 35-49 spend over 11 hours a day on it, while adults 50-64 do so at a nearly 13-hour clip), younger generations are at the forefront of TV-connected device and digital usage.



But young adults spend more time than anyone else consuming media on smartphones



Young adults 18-34 spend 43% of their time consuming media on digital platforms. Almost a third of their time spent with media (29%) comes from apps/web on a smartphone—the most of any measured generation.



If it seems like young people are constantly on their phones, that is because they are. Smartphone use is at an all-time high, and it keeps going up every year.


Sadly, it isn’t just in our free time that most of us are willingly connecting ourselves to “the matrix”. A different study discovered that the average office worker in America spends 1,700 hours in front of a screen each year…



We’re often told to limit the amount of screen time in our daily lives, but for many of us, we don’t have much of a choice. A new study finds the average office worker spends nearly 1,700 hours in front of a computer screen over the course of a year.


According to a survey of 2,000 office workers by contact lenses manufacturer Acuvue, office workers spend about 6.5 hours a day sitting in front of their computer.



So when you add the amount of time we spend staring at screens at work to the amount of time that we spend staring at screens at home, for many of us it pretty much takes up almost all of our waking hours.


Is this good for our society?


Read More @ EndOfTheAmericanDream.com



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