So we have made it a long way in our new and improved American society. 99% of all households have a TV. A third of all households have at least 4 TVs, half of all youth own a television, and they spend a good amount of time in front of it. Almost 20 hours a week, to be exact. If that habit remained unchanged, the average youth would spend 60,216 hours of their life in front of the television.

But before we starting cursing the youth, let’s see if they are really much worse than we tend to be.

Every time you sit down in front of the tube you probably spend at least an hour before it’s turned off. If you watch a few movies and a sporting event on the weekend than you’re probably adding some extra time on top of that. Turning on the TV once a day during the workweek and 8 more hours on a normal weekend, you total 13 hours of Television for any given week. Multiply that by 52 weeks in a year and an average life span of about 60 viewing years and you find that you have watched Television 40,560 hours over the course of your lifetime. Not bad.

Now let’s compare it with some other fairly important lifetime activities:

From Kindergarten to a college degree – 22,400 hours
For the Christian: Daily 30-minute devotions and a perfect church record – 34,320 hours
Lifetime employment – 76,800 hours
Amount of free time parents have with their kids – 26,208 hours

So the television is on. We are watching. The bigger question is exactly what are we watching, and is it really OK?

All statistics given by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is the most elaborate, up-to-date sampling of youth on the subject of television and media. Please visit them at www.kff.org.

Find out how much TV you will watch in this lifetime:

5hrs per week – 15,600 life hours
7 hrs per week – 21,840 life hours
10 hrs per week – 31,200 life hours
13 hrs per week – 40,560 life hours
15 hrs per week – 46,800 life hours
18 hrs per week – 56,160 life hours
20 hrs per week – 62,400 life hours
25 hrs per week – 78,000 life hours