Twice a week I would go out for a run in the evening around the neighborhood and just about every single house will have flashes of light coming through their windows. This light isn’t from some sort of mad science experiment going on, but from the television in the living room zapping our brains with everything from movies, news, talk shows, commercials, and mindless reality shows.
The Nielsen Company estimates there are now 118.4 million TV homes and the average American home now has 2.93 TV sets. The average American now watches more than five hours of television a day and the average viewer spends about 15 minutes of every hour watching commercials. Assuming the US life expectancy of 78 years, we spend about 16 years of our lives watching television.