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The average American watches 3 to 4 hours of television per day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2

The average American watches 3 to 4 hours of television per day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-televisio... Americans also tend to work more hours than their European counterparts. So to me, the idea that we are too busy to enjoy life is categorically FALSE. We have more leisure time now than we ever did at any point in history.

acituan 6y ago
Hours available is an irrelevant measure, because the hours worked is consumptive of certain facilities that is required to enjoy anything more complicated than television, and spatial dynamics matter as much as temporal dynamics between work and leisure. Work demands one’s most productive hours, focused concentration, concentrated decision making, bodily stress etc. There is little left for the remaining leisure time to do anything meaningful. It is also not true that we have more leisure time than any point in history. Academic consensus is that hunter gatherers worked about 2.5 days a week for example. And this was non-alienating work you did with your family and friends (i.e. tribe), outdoors. Compare that to hiking, hunting, fishing, frisbeeing etc we do for recreation nowadays. There are also tons of other externalities embedded to this. We often forget the cost of working. For example living in a city to be close to a job brings a lot of externalities that you don’t get paid for; you need to commute to work, but also commute to any leisure activity that is not in or near your house. In bay area you can’t visit a friend that is 30 minutes away in nominal distance after work because that would be a real 1.30 hour commute during rush hour. The urban design of a city is more likely to be centered around economic activity than facilitating quality leisure time. Even if it once was, economic activity on it changes over time, along with the population, and the utility decreases drastically. Another externality is your house. If you are crammed in an apartment, your leisure choices are restricted as well. Someone with a garage or a backyard can take up gardening, woodworking, playing the drums etc without paying a commute cost. The apartment dweller? Well, thankfully TV’s are flat and trick some part of our brains that we are elsewhere with other people so that we ignore the reality of where we physically are. Final externality is other people. If you want to engage in meaning relationships, it doesn’t suffice that you want that and weather the cost of commute, low energy after work etc. The other people also needs to want those. That makes it combinatorially difficult for a group of people to gather for a meaningful leisure time shared. Oh also assuming working hours coincide, the other guy is not running for promo and doing overtime etc. It is a game theoretic mess.
cableshaft 6y ago
I think part of the reason for such high television numbers is we are so mentally and/or physically exhausted after work (and taking care of children, and chores around the house, and whatnot), that we don't feel like doing much but sitting down and relaxing during this time. Also TV is one of the few things you can do while also doing other things, like I had it on while I was cooking and doing the dishes and eating dinner yesterday, after I finished working at 6:30pm, and was finally done with everything at 9:30pm, just in time to do 20 minutes of saving interesting articles about the pandemic, and then passing out. I'm doing the pandemic article collection, in case people are curious, for multiple reasons. So I can look back and reflect on how it developed later (or show future children), and maybe use it as inspiration for future game designs or short stories I might develop in the future, since I'll likely forget most of the more unusual stories or side effects of the pandemic eventually.

acituan 6y ago

Hours available is an irrelevant measure, because the hours worked is consumptive of certain facilities that is required to enjoy anything more complicated than television, and spatial dynamics matter as much as temporal dynamics between work and leisure. Work demands one’s most productive hours, focused concentration, concentrated decision making, bodily stress etc. There is little left for the remaining leisure time to do anything meaningful. It is also not true that we have more leisure time than any point in history. Academic consensus is that hunter gatherers worked about 2.5 days a week for example. And this was non-alienating work you did with your family and friends (i.e. tribe), outdoors. Compare that to hiking, hunting, fishing, frisbeeing etc we do for recreation nowadays. There are also tons of other externalities embedded to this. We often forget the cost of working. For example living in a city to be close to a job brings a lot of externalities that you don’t get paid for; you need to commute to work, but also commute to any leisure activity that is not in or near your house. In bay area you can’t visit a friend that is 30 minutes away in nominal distance after work because that would be a real 1.30 hour commute during rush hour. The urban design of a city is more likely to be centered around economic activity than facilitating quality leisure time. Even if it once was, economic activity on it changes over time, along with the population, and the utility decreases drastically. Another externality is your house. If you are crammed in an apartment, your leisure choices are restricted as well. Someone with a garage or a backyard can take up gardening, woodworking, playing the drums etc without paying a commute cost. The apartment dweller? Well, thankfully TV’s are flat and trick some part of our brains that we are elsewhere with other people so that we ignore the reality of where we physically are. Final externality is other people. If you want to engage in meaning relationships, it doesn’t suffice that you want that and weather the cost of commute, low energy after work etc. The other people also needs to want those. That makes it combinatorially difficult for a group of people to gather for a meaningful leisure time shared. Oh also assuming working hours coincide, the other guy is not running for promo and doing overtime etc. It is a game theoretic mess.

cableshaft 6y ago

I think part of the reason for such high television numbers is we are so mentally and/or physically exhausted after work (and taking care of children, and chores around the house, and whatnot), that we don't feel like doing much but sitting down and relaxing during this time. Also TV is one of the few things you can do while also doing other things, like I had it on while I was cooking and doing the dishes and eating dinner yesterday, after I finished working at 6:30pm, and was finally done with everything at 9:30pm, just in time to do 20 minutes of saving interesting articles about the pandemic, and then passing out. I'm doing the pandemic article collection, in case people are curious, for multiple reasons. So I can look back and reflect on how it developed later (or show future children), and maybe use it as inspiration for future game designs or short stories I might develop in the future, since I'll likely forget most of the more unusual stories or side effects of the pandemic eventually.