I learned today from eMarketer that the average American watches 6.1 hours of video (including TV, video games, online video, movies) per day. This astounds me. Not only because I am one of those TV nay-sayers, but also because I honestly can hardly fathom a mass of people who actually have that much time in their day, let alone (as it is an average), those who have far more.

My own video consumption probably hovers around .5 hours a day. I tend to watch in fits and spurts–I will go a week or so without looking at anything, and then spend a few days where I watch a good 2 hours a day. Only on extremely rare occasions–i.e. perhaps five or six times in my life–have I watched more than 6 hours of video in one day.

Anyway, quite impressive, America. eMarketer’s predictions are that the average will surpass 8 hours a day around 2013. Again I find this unbelievable. Given my 9 to 6 job, this would mean that I would have to watch TV from 6 to 2 in the morning every day after work. Or, if I chose to go to bed at the more reasonable 1 am, I would have to watch 11.5 hours a day over the weekend to make up for my weekday laxness.

Seriously, where do these people live?