TV Dictates Our Lives - Survey

It’s long been suggested that Britain is a country of inert fools who do nothing more than sit in front of the TV, slowly turning into blobs of pure cholesterol while hour upon hour of mindless crap is catapulted into their eyes.

And now it’s official - a survey by Telewest Broadband has claimed that TV dictates our lives to the extent that we can’t even eat or have sex until we’ve finished watching.

We’re going to celebrate these findings. After Cash Cab’s finished, of course…

Telewest polled 2,000 British adults in the survey - probably for
some kind of new service they’re offering - and the results make for
some grim reading.

The average Brit spends 145 hours a year watching TV shows they’re not interested in. In some cases, that rises to up to 312 hours - almost two full weeks of watching the telly because there’s nothing else on.

13% of the 18 to 29 year-olds surveyed try and have sex during
commercial breaks. We’re assuming that they don’t attempt to get it on
while watching daytime Channel Four adverts -
the sight of all those swimsuited pensioners clambering into their
walk-in baths is something of a mood killer.

However, the timing of
commercial break jiggyness is crucial - 11% of those surveyed are
prepared to shoot down any advances once their programming begins again.

61% of the surveyed masses say that they will
not eat until a favourite programme has finished, while almost a
quarter of those surveyed refuse to talk to anyone else in the house
while they’re watching TV.

Our favourite statistic, however, is the 16% of British parents who
use adverts to "attend to their children’s needs". Little Timmy may
have overloaded his nappy with quickly-cooling shit, or accidentally
poured boiling water over himself, but he’ll have to wait until You’ve
Been Framed has finished before anyone’s going to do anything about it.

What does this survey prove? We’ll tell you, but straight after Loose Women, OK?

Read more:

Death of the ad break quickie - Telewest (press release) 

[story by Stuart Heritage]