Are Americans Being Held Captive by Their TVs?

So much of life nowadays it seems revolves around what's happening on television. Is it possible Americans are being held captive by their TVs?

Remember the days of getting maybe three network channels and PBS by using an antenna? I remember them, but just barely.

Next came cable TV and what we thought was a bombardment of channels, which in reality was a fraction of the channels we have available today.

Now, of course, we also have the satellite TV providers and Netflix, which, like cable, offer a ridiculous amount of programming.

Oh, and just so we don't miss anything, we've traded in the VCR for DVR, the Hopper, and TiVo, so now not only can we record more than one program at a time, we can store hours upon hours of television shows for viewing later.

According to an Associated Press story on Yahoo, in 2014 there were 352 original series aired on broadcast, cable, and streaming services. And that doesn't even include news, sports, talk shows, documentaries, movies, classic TV shows, or reality shows.

We always hear about how busy our lives are today -- so how do we possibly find time to watch television?

I don't know the answer to that. All I know is that we do, and we watch a lot of TV.

According to the NY Daily News, the average person watches five hours of television a day. Never mind the time we spend on our smartphones, iPads, laptops, and other devices surfing the net and checking everyone's status on Facebook.

It seemed so easy back in the day. No cable or satellite TV, no video recording, just three basic channels. The options were limited, which made the decision to watch or not to watch much easier.

Now, there are so many viewing options, you can almost always find SOMETHING on that's of interest to you. Consequently, our bodies are beginning to take on the shape of our living room couch or recliner.

Can we say no to television? Can we walk away? Or are we being held captive by this electronic device that somehow holds such great power over us?

It feels like to me we are being TV'd to death...a slow, painful, mindless death.