Video is taking over the internet. In 2006, 12% of all the trafic on the internet was video. Now about 70% of the internet is made up of video, and that figure is expected to rise to 90% in 2020. Everyone is watching more and more Netflix, Youtube and uitzendinggemist than ever.
One might think that this is caused by the fact that people watch less and less regular tv, but this isn’t true. People don’t watch less regular tv. On average, 2 hours and 24 minutes per person per day in the Netherlands. This is because people watch more and more live events like sports and news on normal tv. Another reason is that people combine watching tv and videos online on their Smartphone or tablet. The question that comes to mind is of course is: if we are all watching more video online, and watching more regular tv , and a day still only has 24 hours: what are we doing less? And the sad answer is: seeing each other; time spent going out with friends or visiting friends in their home has been going down for years. People are getting busier working, and are getting busier watching videos online. And of course, we are still communicating with friends and family via internet, mostly during the time we spend netflixing, but it’s not making us a lot happier.
A huge research, published recently in the Economic Journal tells us which activities make us happier and by how much. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the activity that makes people the happiest is sex, with an increase in happiness of 14%. Right after that it is visiting a theatre, a concert, going dancing, going to a museum or library and gardening, etc. The top 20 activities that makes us the happiest don’t involve using the internet or tv. According to the research, taking care of pets and running errands makes us happier than watching tv or film, which only makes us 2,5% happier. Spending time on the internet is even worse, it only makes us happier by 0,6 %
So why are we spending so much time watching videos and less and less time doing all those things that really make us happy during our free time? Do you recognize this behaviour and does it make you happy? Let me know in the comments!
https://fd.nl/werk-en-geld/1145446/waar-halen-we-de-tijd-vandaan
http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/assets/ckeditor/attachments/1034/happiness_study_by_lse.pdf?1410238913
https://www.scp.nl/Onderzoek/Tijdsbesteding/Hoe_lang_en_hoe_vaak/Vrije_tijd/Wat_doen_Nederlanders_in_hun_vrije_tijd
http://nos.nl/artikel/2012209-nederlander-keek-nog-nooit-zo-veel-televisie.html
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/entertainment-media/outlook.html
I am really greatful for your post, I could not have put it better myself & totally agree.
We are indeed spending more and more time alone but we don’t realize it because entertainment, doesn’t make you feel like you are physically alone, even if you are. In my view, what holds true for videos also holds true for video games that you play on your own: they engage your mind in such a good and entertaining way that you don’t notice and also don’t care that you are actually alone. This is especially dangerous for children as it may have an impact on their psychological health and development, mainly because spending time in “the real world” with friends and physical activities teaches you that actions have consequences. Videos and especially video games that kids nowadays (quite understandably) love to play do oftentimes not teach you this valuable lesson.
So should we restrict entertainment like this? I think no. Everybody needs to have the freedom to choose. But what we do need is education. We need education about what actually makes one feel good and healthy, especially in psychological contexts like this, where that facts are not obvious to everybody (as compared to physical exercise which anybody would support).
Dear Jan, thanks for your interesting post. I was actually very surprised to read that people are not watching less and less regular tv. Unfortunately, you did not mention any historical figures on average time spent watching tv. I found a report (https://www.statista.com/statistics/276748/average-daily-tv-viewing-time-per-person-in-selected-countries/) that says that a person in the Nethwrlands watches tv for 3 hours and 59 minutes per day on average in 2014, which seems a lot higher than the figure you mentioned for 2016. Thus, are people really watching more regular tv than before?
Well, it’s complicated. there are a lot of ways of measuring the amount of televsion people watch. for instance, some stats only include time spent watching as a main activity, other exclude watching dvd’s and some of them also conside watching tv outside of home, so at work or in a cafe for example. This makes comparing different measurements diffficult. but the general tendency is that it is not really decreasing, at least in no means by as much as wathin video content online ( netflix etc.) is increasing.
I am sure in the future watching online will mostly replace traditional tv, but that is not really what this blog is about. the point is that we are watching more and more and it is not necessarily making us very happy.