African Americans consume more TV than any other ethnic group, according to a new report released by Nielsen Media Research.
According to data collected in November, African Americans led all ethnic groups with seven hours, 12 minutes of television consumed each day, according to blackvoices.com. The U.S. average of TV consumption is five hours, 11 minutes daily,
Nick Jeffrey, an outreach and research coordinator in Miami, said the Nielsen statistics may be a reflection of recent job loss and economic troubles in America.
“It could be unemployment. You have a lot of time to watch TV when you don’t have a job,” he said.
Social media may play a major role in media use, too. According to a Kaiser Foundation report in 2010, “mobile technology has increased among 8 to 18 year olds.” The report also stated that “heavy media use” may contribute to poor grades and “lower levels of personal contentment.”
Teen Health and the Media, a research Web site operated by the University of Washington, agreed with Nielsen’s findings.
“African-American households, in general, watch more television than other groups in the U.S. African-Americans watch, on average, two more hours of primetime television per week and watch close to five more hours of daytime television per week,” a report on the site stated.
The Web site also found that, by the age of 18 years old, the average teenager will have seen 350,000 commercials.