TV

According to Nielsen Americans continue to spend more and more time with screened media. The conventional television still has the most viewers, but it is quickly changing with greater use of DVRs, computers, cell phones and other screens as people utilize On Demand and other technologies now available.

Americans spent 56% more time watching time-shifted TV, primarily on digital video recorders, and 9% more time using the internet to watch at home and at work. Overall TV viewing -- live and played back -- increased only 4%.

Nielsen states that U.S. consumers watched live and time-shifted TV a total of 127 hours and 15 minutes in May, compared with 121 hours and 48 minutes in the same month in 2007. Viewing of time-shifted TV on its own rose to 5 hours and 50 minutes, compared with 3 hours and 44 minutes in the year-earlier period. Internet use increased to 26 hours and 26 minutes, up from 24 hours and 16 minutes.

In only a 12 month period, these are dramatic shifts leading people to more sedentary and solitary lifestyles with ever increasing obesity and other ills.

-Source: Center for Screen-Time Awareness

Flatscreen TV Gas Could Accelerate Global Warming

The gas used in manufacturing liquid crystal display (LCD) flat-screen televisions could cause more global warming than coal-fired power plants, according to a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Nitrogen trifluoride’s climate-warming effect reportedly could be 17,000 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide, and production of the chemical could double to 8,000 tons next year, according to atmospheric chemist and report co-author Michael Prather.

In reviewing the findings, New Scientist points out that production of LCD screens this year alone could release the equivalent of the global warming emmissions from all of Austria.

Nitrogen trifluoride wasn’t among the six gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol international climate change agreement because its use was insignificant at the time it was drafted.

The switch to digital television in the U.S. over the next several months is expected to create a boom in sales of flat-screen televisions, including LCDs.

Liquid crystal display sets have often been touted as eco-friendly because they consume less power than plasma or rear-projection sets.

-SOURCE: Earthweek, Diary of a Small Planet