College students are notorious for their excessive television watching. While our parents are often too busy with housework and errands to watch television and our little siblings are restricted from watching too much television, we appear to be not only the generation with the most free time on our hands, but the most eager ones to abuse this newfound freedom and totally escape responsibility.
For many of us, this is the first time living on our own, free of the glare of our parents who pester us with questions like “shouldn’t you be doing something more productive?”
But a new move by the Nielsen Media Research group will strive to include college students who are away from home in the groups’ monitoring of television watching patterns in different households across the nation.
Nielsen Media Research is famous for its measurements of television audiences, according to the group’s Web site. When reports are announced in the news about how many people are watching a snazzy new television show, it is Nielsen that conducts the reports of how many people were watching what shows by recruiting volunteers from a broad array of backgrounds to allow the group to monitor their television watching.
This new research, however, may be a bit embarrassing for students. In a few months, students across the nation will be receiving the same phone call from distraught parents, dismayed at the amount and quality of television their college kid is watching.
While our parents may have convinced themselves that because we attend a university our time away from rigorous study is consumed by PBS and the Discovery Channel, the sad truth is that much of students’ time in the dorms (and just about anywhere) is spent watching reality television and other trashy TV, while studying and reading are often omitted from the list of student priorities.
But, there’s no need to fret. The Nielsen surveys use a large population to conduct their surveys in order to eliminate any outliers. That means the results are comprised of what most students usually watch, but not all students. It also means you can always mollify mom or dad by explaining that you are one of the few students who forego all the frivolous TV, and that they aren’t throwing money away for you to lounge in the dorms and yes you are learning while away from home.
The sad reality is that the quality of television available for students is on the decline. Whether television networks are merely supplying a demand from young adults for stupid crime shows and pointless sitcoms or we’re watching these shows because they’re the only thing on has yet to be determined.
One thing is for sure, though: Students are going to have a lot of explaining to do when the results of this television monitoring are in.