Yesterday's This American Life was brilliant, about television. The first segment was a guy without a TV, who was assigned to watch 29 hours of TV, because that's what the average American watches in a week. That floored me, not only because until a couple of years ago I probably watched something approaching that, but because now I have no idea where I would carve 29 hours out of my week. As a friend pointed out, that's nearly another full-time job. I'm not even sure what I do instead, though sadly a lot of it involves putzing around with the computer, but I cut back enormously last year when I realized how dissociative it is, how hard it was to engage with television and then come back to be fully present in the real world.

The researcher/wonk Clay Shirky has an interesting piece on the current social situation regarding television and the Internet, which is much better than its title of Gin, Television, and Social Surplus might indicate.