MEDIA: More and more Americans consider a TV set to be unnecessary in their household.
Only 42 percent of Americans still regard their television as a means of life. A year ago, it was 52 percent, in 2006 as much as 64 percent. This almost dramatic decline is based on a new study by the American Pew Research Center , which regularly addresses demographic trends.
For the study titled “The Fading Glory of the Television and Telephone”, in German for example “The fading fame of television and telephone,” consumers classify everyday things as either “essential to life” or as “luxury that you can do without.”
The television is only in eighth place. Cars lead the ranking of the most necessary things for Americans with 86 percent, followed by a landline telephone with 62 percent and the tumble dryer with 59 percent. But it is not just the television that is facing increasing difficulties: Landline telephone, tumble dryer, microwave and air conditioning have also been recording severe losses since 2006. Not entirely unexpectedly, mobile phones, broadband Internet and flat screen TVs or HDTV were able to maintain or increase.
The Americans are acknowledging that the good old TV set is becoming less and less necessary, yet they are buying more and more TV sets. Pew Research concludes that television as a medium and television as a device for TV consumption are still regarded as the most effective way of providing oneself with a wide range of entertainment.