Like Sands Through the Hour Glass...

Stock Photo www.tvprogear.com

Last week I read this article about how watching TV is bad for you and how for every hour you spend watching TV you are actually taking an additional 22 minutes off of your life expectancy. This article really gave me something to think about.

While I currently do not watch a lot of TV there was a time in my life when I got paid to sit in a room similar to the one pictured surrounded by TV screens. I would sit for hours on end (usually about 8 per day) 5 and 6 days per week and and watch what came on these screens. In fact my job in a nutshell was to make sure the right thing was on TV at the right time. I would plop down in my rolling chair before the 5'o clock news and not stop watching TV until long after Conan O'Brien.

This gig wasn't too bad when we were showing the Thursday Night Must See line up including Friends, Seinfeld, & ER. Or when we were showing the World Series or Football, but when we should mindless dribble like soap operas or infomercials I could almost feel my brain begin to melt.

This was a fun job with some really great people and we probably avoided more TV than most people could possibly imagine, but it wasn't because we knew we were saving minutes of our lives.  All told though if you do the math over the 4 years I worked in Master Control I logged somewhere near 8,500 hours in front of the TV (and that was just at work). Doing the math from the study, that means I am going to live 185,000 minutes less than if I had never worked there. For anyone that might want to know that is 128 days I'll never get to see.

I can only hope the endless hours I have spent watching football don't count because many of those hours were spent standing and pacing.... if they count... I am really shortening my life expectancy. I better check on my insurance tomorrow I may not be around much longer.

I was in the TV studio during Princess Diana's funeral and after 911. I spent nights there working with weathermen to help assure people of their safety. And while, because of watching TV I may not make it to see my own daughter get married at least i got to see Monica & Chandler tie the knot.

To all my friends from back in the WDAM stage in my life, I had a blast. I just hope this study isn't true...

Here is a link to the story that prompted this blog

http://news.yahoo.com/too-much-tv-may-years-off-life-231005195.html