You want 30 percent more life? Simple! Turn off your TV.
According to the Nielson Company, the average American, age 2 and above, watched television 4 hours and 49 minutes a day during the 2008-2009 season, an all-time high. Since 4 hours and 49 minutes is 30% of our allotted 16 waking hours a day, those of you who want to get a life can now get up off your couch and get 30 percent more real living done.
Nielson includes recorded television watched within 7 days of airing. The number is up 4 minutes from last year and 20 percent from just a decade ago. The average household has a TV on eight hours and 21 minutes a day, also a new record.
In case you might think that no harm can come from all that television, a study* by researcher Jennifer Manganello from the State University of New York at Albany, correlates the television viewing habits of three year olds with aggressive behavior. Quite simply, the more television toddlers watch, the more aggressive behaviors they exhibit: “hitting others, having angry moods, being disobedient, and screaming a lot.”
Your mind is like your body: what you choose to feed it has a powerful impact. Four hours and 49 minutes a day is 1,758 hours a year. Think what you could do with that time, think what you could become.
Most people go the same distance in life, just some choose to go in circles and others drive up and down the same rut over and over and over.
Your life is yours. You can live it on autopilot or you can live it on purpose. As always, the choice is yours.
* Study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.