Spending time with Wii?

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). The average US household had the TV turned on 8 hours and 11 minutes per day. Why is it that spending this time with TV is considered normal, but if you spent the same time playing video games, people start worrying about addiction?

Fact is that leisure time is one of the great achievements of civilization. Modern man spends considerably less time per week for bringing food on the table as the people in previous centuries. But now we need to fill this leisure time with something. TV is still the prime choice, and has been in the last 50 years, but nowadays surfing the internet or playing video games is making inroads. And that isn't a bad thing. Even a video game is a lot more interactive than TV. And surfing the net, in spite of the dangers of finding things they aren't supposed to see, is training kids in skills that are quite relevant for their future careers.

So we are looking for something that can fill a 4-hour-per-day hole in our lives, to replace TV. And a MMORPG like World of Warcraft is certainly able to fill a hole of that size. And most video game consoles, with a bunch of games, are also able to fill that hole. But curiously the latest development in video game consoles won't be able to do that. You simply can't play on the Wii for 4 hours a day, it causes too much pain. Swinging the Wii controller like a virtual sword or tennis racket sounds like a fun idea, but after an hour or so your arm, shoulder, or neck is starting to hurt. Hey, I saw that one coming, which is why I never planned to buy a Wii.

Now a Wii is considerably cheaper than a XBox 360 or PS3. And if you have the money, you might still want to buy a Wii for the occasional half-hour of exercise in front of your TV. It sure looks like more fun than a Jane Fonda aerobics video. But if you only want to buy *one* of the "next generation" consoles, keep in mind that you're unlikely to use the Wii for 4 hours a day. Unless of course you want to buy a Wii for your children, to tire them out. ;)