How Much Television do you Watch?

[Chocolate Kiwii]

Be honest! Throughout the week about how many hours do you spend in front of the television?

Are you happy with your current regimen? What are you doing to change it? What do you wish you were investing your time in instead?

[Dark Flame]

I probably average around 15 hours a week, although it's hard to judge because the TV is usually on all the time, I just don't pay full attention to it more than 15 hours a week.

I'm perfectly happy with it. I am entertained, and I can usually manage to multi-task while I'm watching so I can get other stuff done too.

[Stark]

Do you mean 'watch TV' or do you mean 'watch recorded entertainment media'? Because I watch zero television, but a lot of DVDs, webcasts, downloads, etc.

[Chocolate Kiwii]

Do you mean 'watch TV' or do you mean 'watch recorded entertainment media'? Because I watch zero television, but a lot of DVDs, webcasts, downloads, etc.

Hrm. . .I guess that counts as long as your vegging in front of it.

[Patrick Degan]

Do you mean 'watch TV' or do you mean 'watch recorded entertainment media'? Because I watch zero television, but a lot of DVDs, webcasts, downloads, etc.

Hrm. . .I guess that counts as long as your vegging in front of it.

I'm not sure... since compiling a private library at least involves choice and also the deliberate effort to avoid commercials. Very different from either sitting zombie-like on the couch for hours on end to be passively bombarded by whatever comes forth on the box or spending an entire evening pointlessly channel-surfing in the vain hope of finding something, anydamnthing to watch for more than two minutes.

For myself, I watch a lot less TV than I used to, and finding that I'm not missing it all that much.

[Resinence]

I don't even own a TV

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

None. Haven't had cable or satellite since I moved from the high desert to the low desert, and since I live out in horse country; the off-air reception is terrible. I can't say that I really miss it all that much. Sure there are some shows and series that I do miss, like Discovery Channel's MythBusters, but that's what DVDs are for, so I don't have to sit through the insipid, intelligence-insulting swill that passes for most of the network's other programming (and the programming of every other network in general.)

Honestly, I'd rather be riding my bicycle, or building an R/C plane, or working out how to apply everything I've learned about R/C to robotics, or flying.

[Count Chocula]

When I was younger I was a TV junkie, and a Blockbuster whore. As I got into my 20s and 30s, though, I discovered that aside from a few series like Bab5 and (yes) Star Trek, I didn't have much interest in TV. My wife's probably in the 20 hours a week range.

Mostly these days, I watch Clone Wars with my son, and Californication and Curb Your Enthusiasm with the wife. HDTV Fuck Yeah!

[Guardsman Bass]

I probably spend about 5-6 hours watching television, although only 2 1/2 hours of that consists of watching the television passively (the remaining time is usually recorded programming that I'm watching, to eliminate commercials).

I don't watch as much television as I used to. A year ago, I probably watched about 10 hours a week.

[phred]

I used to watch a lot of TV, but I just don't bother anymore. I'll occasionally put in a DVD, but I'm still on the internet doing other things while watching.

[aerius]

I'm down to MythBusters, Time Warp, and How it's Made, plus a couple minutes a day to check weather & traffic. And MMA events, though that's usually a party down at the bar with my friends or over at my buddy's place since he has a large screen TV. It adds up to less than 3 hours a week unless there's an MMA event going on which is usually about once a month.

I used to watch a lot more but university cured me of that, I went a year without TV and found I wasn't missing much, went from 20-25 hours a week in high school to nothing, then back to about 5-6 hours and then gradually dropped down to where I am now.

[darthdavid]

4-5 hours, and only if you count TV shows I watch on my computer(Mythbusters, Top Gear, The Daily Show and sometimes the Colbert Report) ...

[weemadando]

3-6 hours of TV (mainly passive watching, like news in the morning while I get ready for work).
Up to 8 or so hours of pre-recorded media.
Up to 8 or so hours (if I'm lucky/lazy) of gaming in front of a TV.

[TimothyC]

I'd say no more than 4 hours of dedicated "I want to watch this" a week, but working for a company that sells TVs means that I see closer to 20+ hours a week.

[His Divine Shadow]

I vote none at first since I lack a TV but I do watch a few shows via the net, mostly venture brothers, dexter and top gear.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

About three hours or less, I don't have cable* so I pretty much only watch tv when I'm over at my mom's house.

*I have cable internet, but not television

[Tsyroc]

I watch football, college and pro.

Other than that I get NCIS off of iTunes.

The rest of my TV watching is sporadic.

[Sarevok]

Cable TV is pointless when you have high speed internet. Everything you need is right infront of you to save and watch at your leisure. Only time I turn on the tv is for news. Even that is changing as I find the simple news feed on firefox far more informative and timely.

[RedImperator]

I'll watch football games or Villanova basketball, and occasionally I'll catch Mythbusters, Keith Olbermann/Rachel Maddow, or The Daily Show, but that's about it. I do watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Hulu, but I've caught up on season 5 now, so that's only another half-hour.

[Simplicius]

Basically nil. On some weeks I might accumulate an hour or so of state-level news, but that's about it. The internet is my main time-waster, but even there I am reading websites and not watching media.

[salm]

Practically none. I threw my television out a couple of years ago. If i want to see a soccer match i go to down to the bar. I watch DVDs with my girlfriend or mates, though and am happy with the way it is so i don´t do anything to change it.

A couple of weeks ago i was at a friends place and i noticed that i really can´t watch TV anymore without getting agressive. The permanent advertisment is one thing that makes my finger nails curl but the even more important thing is that the shows are made to entertain retards by showing off even more retarded retards. We saw "Germany´s got talent" and i can only picture it as pack of special ed dropouts beating up a kid with down syndrome. It´s so stupid that i can´t even laugh about it. It´s just sad. I actually found it a lot worse than the "kick me in the balls" show from Idiocracy.

[Surlethe]

None. We have no television.

[Mayabird]

Our TV is only for gaming. If there's something we really, really want to watch, we can probably catch it online.

I know SDN isn't a representative sample of the population at all, but are more people ditching their TVs or TV viewing these days when they can get internet instead?

[Minischoles]

I don't even own a TV at the moment, I used to be a real TV junkie but when I moved and it got broken I just sorta stopped watching and realised I wasn't really missing much. Anything I would want to watch I can see online, if I want to watch a movie I can rent it and watch it on my PC, games come out clearer on my monitor and mostly what I used to watch was just the music channels all day while there was nothing else on, and youtube/itunes/WMP take care of music and like salm if I want to watch some sport its much more fun to go to a bar and watch it with some friends.

[Alferd Packer]

If it's just the weekdays, it's probably in the 3-6 hour range. But on the weekends, holy shit. Especially now that it's football season. The TV goes on at noon on Saturday and goes off when the last game is off the air. Same deal on Sunday.

Call it six hours per day on the weekends(though the TV is on, I'm usually doing other stuff) plus another five hours total for the weekdays.