Men and Women Achieve Equality as Couch Potatoes

Fanghawk

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Men and Women Achieve Equality as Couch Potatoes

According to Nielsen, men and women spend almost exactly the same amount of time watching a television screen every day.

For quite some time now, experts from a variety of diverse fields have argued that men and women are actually more similar <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Are_from_Mars,_Women_Are_from_Venus>than a certain self-help book implied. There can be subtle differences between the sexes in areas like math or <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106286-Study-Proves-Games-Allow-Women-to-Better-Judge-Spatial-Relationships>spatial awareness, but society is slowly coming to grips with the fact that women are just as active as men in sports, politics, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/85137-Report-Two-fifths-of-American-Gamers-are-Women>playing videogames, and perhaps even laziness. According to a recent study by Nielsen, men and women spend equal amounts of time in front of television sets every day, with a difference of mere minutes separating the leisure habits of men and women.

Women initially surpassed men in average TV viewing time at 4 hours and 11 minutes daily. Men came in second with 3 hours 34 minutes, but those figures change the moment you include time spent on videogame consoles. Taken on the whole, men and women spend approximately 4 and a half hours per day in front of a television screen, whether a remote or a console controller is at hand.

Obviously a report like this should be taken with a grain of salt. It's not entirely clear what the limitations of the study are, such as whether the sample group made use of streaming services like Netflix away from the television. That said, it wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that men and women share near-identical leisure habits, and more common ground is always a good thing. As long as we can agree on which show to watch, at least.

Source: Joystiq

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Kinguendo

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I am just going to assume you meant Couch given the context that is set out in the story and not mention anything like "Whats a counch?" or "Is a counch what happens when a couch has unnatural relations with a conch shell?" or something.

Also, equality is always good... even if it is equality in being lazy.
 

axlryder

victim of VR
Jul 29, 2011
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While it says in that link that woman make up about 40% of gamers, I have to wonder if there's a large difference in the type of games that men and woman are generally playing. Not trying to stir anything up, I'm just genuinely curious.
 

lacktheknack

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Jan 19, 2009
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COUNCHES!

With that out of the way... over four hours a day?! And I thought two hours a day was a bit luxurious...
 

Fanghawk

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Kinguendo said:
I am just going to assume you meant Couch given the context that is set out in the story and not mention anything like "Whats a counch?" or "Is a counch what happens when a couch has unnatural relations with a conch shell?" or something.

Also, equality is always good... even if it is equality in being lazy.
lacktheknack said:
COUNCHES!

With that out of the way... over four hours a day?! And I thought two hours a day was a bit luxurious...
I don't know what this counch is, just that I want one now.

Thanks!
 

Clive Howlitzer

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I don't know how anyone can stomach watching TV for more than 5 minutes, let alone that long of a duration.
 

VinLAURiA

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poiumty said:
Ah yes, "TV". That outdated, unreliable contraption that requires you to schedule yourself according to its needs, bothers you with advertisments and is woefully unintellectual in 90% of what it offers. We have dismissed that device.
A snob! In the wild!

Truthfully, I agree a lot with what you're saying, but Blah's right in that us Americans have it a lot worse because of our corporatized networks that both solicit commercials and charge service fees to consumers. They don't have to deal with that junk over in Britain, and sometimes I wish the BBC offered TV licenses over here. Beats paying $40 a month just for basic cable with commercials a-plenty.

But at the same time... DVR. Lot of providers here in the States offer cable boxes with built-in TiVo-like functionality with internal hard drives and computerized guides to schedule automatic TV recordings of specific shows that you can watch at any time - skipping commercials - as a more expensive option instead of a basic box, so it can get pretty convenient over here as well if you have the cash.

... And my dad works at Comcast so we already get cable, internet, all premium channels, and a DVR all for free, with full-featured VoIP phone service for - like - thirty bucks a month so I personally have no right to complain. Employee benefits are a hell of a thing.
 

Epona

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I pay $25 a month for Netflix and watch no commercials at all. 3 DVD's out at a time and can watch streaming on all 3 of my TV's at once. I don't need to see shit as soon as it airs. Getting free cable from Comcast isn't really free if you give away 1/3 of every hour to ads which someone is making money from.

That 20 minutes you are watching commercials is 20 minutes that I am watching content. Free internet is nice though, you could use it to watch Netflix.
 

zombiesinc

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Mar 29, 2010
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I watch television but nothing live. I stopped sitting down at a specific time to watch a certain show many years ago. I know a lot of people still do that though... my parents included. But I think that has less to do with any genuine interest in what's on and more to do with a lack of understanding in regards to the not-so-basic tech.
 

Rainforce

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zombiesinc said:
I watch television but nothing live. I stopped sitting down at a specific time to watch a certain show many years ago. I know a lot of people still do that though... my parents included. But I think that has less to do with any genuine interest in what's on and more to do with a lack of understanding in regards to the not-so-basic tech.
well, I don't really watch tv either, maybe for news every now and then, but that's it. Otherwise I only watch stuff on the internet, because frankly, I don't want to waste 5 minutes or more on ads every half hour until my movie/series/whatever continues.
 

redknightalex

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Aug 31, 2012
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Just to add to the numbers, it would probably be interesting to see the numbers on computer usage where you are not sitting on a couch (proper Desktop, leisure time), either playing video games or surfing the Internet. Yes, PC Gamers still do exist. Overall, the message is we're lazy and sitting all day is not very good for us.

Actually, it takes away a few years of our life...which we'd spend on the couch anyway so what's the point?
 

sethisjimmy

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I'm glad to see that more and more people are ditching standard cable/satellite TV. I stopped watching years ago because I can't stand goddamn advertisements wasting my time, and not being able to watch a show when I want to watch a show is another completely pointless waste of time. As well as being charged for hundreds of channels that all play at the same time yet you can only watch 1 at any given time, meaning you're just paying for the novelty of having the other channels "on hand".
I'm not against television shows so much as I'm against the shitty user experience TV providers offer.