...that the average American household has more TVs than people? That's 2.73 televisions per household compared to 2.6 people. My own household is currently defying the norm, and I don't mean because we have .6 fewer people and no fractional televisions. (Two people, one television. We seem to be doing just fine.) At first I was a bit surprised by the statistic - it seemed a bit like having more cars than drivers. Except that when I think about it, I know a whole lot of people who have more televisions than people in their households. Cars are a lot more transportable than televisions are (though you could also easily make the case that lugging a television from room to room is a silly scenario not because it's heavy but because watching television in every room of the house is far from a necessity.)
This statistic was in the recent "America by the Numbers" edition of Time Magazine, which contained other interesting tidbits as well. Like in spite of every report you read on American's sleep habits which tell you that we're all sleep deprived, Americans of all ages are averaging more than 8 hours. Or that we buy more bottles of Absolut Vodka per day (160,968) than we do jars of Ragu spaghetti sauce (only 93,000, and if you wonder why this is the case, Kelsey may have the answer for you). Or that firemen are among the happiest people and elementary school teachers are happier than high school teachers (hmm...). Or that Los Angeles has the worst traffic in the nation.
Not sure how useful any of these factoids are, but they're sure fun to read.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
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6 comments:
A lot of that depends on what you define as a TV. I have one TV between my roommate and me, but then my two desktop computers each have a TV tuner card in them (used for video import and editing), so I could watch TV on them. Does that make them TVs?
If so, then we have 3 TVs for 2 people. Of course, my two computers are connected to only one monitor, so I can only watch one of them at a time. Does that make them one or two TVs?
Dagnabit! Now you have me wondering if I am above average or below average!
We have 4 TVs for 3 people. Yeah, we're above average!! To our defense, one of them rarely gets used, it's just there for guests.
Yes, indeed -- Kelsey might be interested in the "Is Ragu more popular than Prego?" factoid :-) You mean that wasn't included?!! Unbelievable!
the statistic could also be screwed up slighty by us media types, for instance when I lived in an apartment, I had three computers and four tvs for just myself. But that's for working and homework and fun as well. All in a days work I suppose.
There are two TVs in my apartment, and I live alone. Of course, I rent the apartment fully furnished, so I don't actually own any TVs.
I think I'd rather buy vodka than Ragu. Not that I would drink the vodka, but I draw the line at buying Ragu.
Also, we have one 12 inch TV for four people. My roommates and I are definitely below average. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
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