Filed under: News, President Obama, Race and Civil Rights
A report released on Wednesday reveals that African Americans have the highest rate of total TV usage among all ethnicities in the United States.
According to the Nielsen State of the Media, which analyzed data compiled from November 2010, the U.S. average for television viewing is 5 hours, 11 minutes, with Asians watching TV an average of 3 hours, 14 minutes daily. On the higher end of that average, is the African-American community, watching television for an astronomical 7 hours, 12 minutes each day.
Reportedly, African Americans also play video games more than white, Hispanic or Asian Americans, which is higher than the national average.
Sifting through the disheartening statistics, one thing is crystal clear: Black people watch too much TV.
Obviously, not the best news, but how does that translate into a negative impact on the African-American community? According to a study done by Haejung Paik and George Comstock, there is a "positive and significant correlation between television violence and aggressive behavior."
Even more discouraging, a study by the Kaiser Foundation presents evidence that extensive media usage leads to poor grades and lower levels of personal contentment. Though the Nielsen study shows that teenagers watch television the least, that statistic is misleading. While it is true that actual television watching has declined, the viewing of television programming has increased through Internet usage and websites like Hulu and YouTube.
There have been many studies that indicate the poor academic performance of African-American children in school and the high achieving Asian children. And in acknowledgment of this data, President Barack Obama told journalists from black media outlets in 2009 that these findings are at the root of our overarching economic disparities:
"If we close the achievement gap, then a big chunk of economic inequality in this society is diminished," said the President.
Eighty-five percent of our children cannot read or do math at grade level, and an African-American male has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime, according to a study done by Hart Research Associates for the Children's Defense Fund. All these things, theoretically, are related to excessive television usage.
We need to read more with our children, and turn the television off, so that they are not unduly influenced by violent and sexual images on screen, but instead forced to use their minds. There is power in knowledge, and we are doing our children a disservice by allowing them to consume so much frivolity.
But let's not get distracted.
While this study highlights the television usage in African-American households, there is a deeper issue of class status versus the obvious race issue. Asian-Americans watch the least amount of television, and have better academic performances and higher incomes than any other minority, according to a study done by A. Thernstrom called "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning." In data presented by website Teen Health and the Media, the heaviest television watching occurs in the lowest income households.
If one looks beneath the surface, this information suggests that if educational, housing and occupational disparities are addressed in this country, this can directly effect change in the amount of television viewing.
However, maybe we aren't supposed to look beneath the surface. Maybe it's easier for society to feed in to the "black people are lazy" stereotypes that run rampant in our culture instead of addressing underlying issues that affect our communities.
Maybe it's easier to say black people watch the most television, rather than poor people watch the most television.
After all, saying African Americans are more likely to live in poverty and thus more likely to watch television would lead to a conversation that this country -- led by our President -- refuses to have.
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