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My wife and I are over 70. We live in the UK. It's fun to generalise, but not always helpful. No, we don't watch anything like 6 hours of TV a day. We have our
by beardyw 4y ago
My wife and I are over 70. We live in the UK.
It's fun to generalise, but not always helpful. No, we don't watch anything like 6 hours of TV a day. We have our evening meal, like every meal, at a table. We mostly watch one thing a day on streaming, usually well made fiction. We read news on our phones but never watch it on TV because of all the uninformed comment.
Maybe we are not typical, but we do exist.
- greyhair 4y ago65. I went from 1975 through to 2010 not owning a TV. Not even one. In 2010 we bought a 55" HDTV (but no cable service), a BluRay player, and a Nintendo Wii. We also got a Netflix DVD subscription. We had three young kids at the time. I carved a 16 foot by 16 foot square of space out of the basement, floored with resilient foam tiles, hung the screen on the wall, added some inexpensive Ikea chairs, and the kids would jump around playing Wii games, often times with their friends over, and the whole family would share a movie on occasion. Two years later we added a Roku streaming box. Still no cable service. My wife streams something from roku, netflix or prime, while she folds laundry (she does laundry, I do most all of the cooking and dish washing). I rarely watch the screen for entertainment at all. I sit in front of a screen for work, eight or nine hours a day, for the last thirty eight years. I don't need to see more glowing pixels than that. I know my wife and I are outliers. She sees maybe four hours of TV streaming a week. I average maybe two hours a month, only because on occasion we will sit and watch a movie together.
- roland35 4y agoRock on! Glad you're enjoying hacker news too :)
- beardyw 4y agoThanks. When you retire your old job is not far away.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- michaelhoney 4y agoConsider that for every older person like OP who watches less than 6 hours, someone else is watching more
- nradov 4y agoAre they really watching, or is the TV just on in the background while they do other stuff?
- itishappy 4y agoAt 42+ hours a week I'm no longer sure it matters.
- ido 4y agoI think for retired people, there mostly isn't all that much other stuff to do.
- hackernewds 4y agoThere used to be
- lostlogin 4y agoThere still is.
- MengerSponge 4y agohttp://bowlingalone.com/ http://bowlingalone.com/
- cafard 4y agoI am not retired, but my wife is. She does watch TV, an hour or two at night. She gardens and volunteers. Various acquaintances who have retired engage in volunteer activities: helping other seniors during health-plan "open season"; organizing free dental clinics in poor counties in Virginia; teaching and tutoring; even making sure that there are bags available for dog-walkers.
- iLoveOncall 4y agoWhy is this top comment? You cannot criticize generalization and at the same time be culprit of it. You are generalizing your personal experience. This article doesn't claim that all over-60 do this, it very rightfully talks about the average, which captures cases like yours and also cases where people watch TV 18 hours a day.