Consoles bridge gender gap on TV time
Although women are more likely to watch television, game consoles help close the gap for men and TV viewership.
Gaming is helping men close the gender gap on how much time is spent in front of televisions.
According to new data from Nielsen, the average American woman between the ages of 18 and 34 spends 4 hours and 11 minutes watching television each day. The average man of the same age spends 37 minutes less time watching television, tallying 3 hours and 34 minutes per day.
However, when it comes to using consoles for everything from gaming to watching video, men spend 48 minutes with the hardware, more than doubling the average woman's 22 minutes of daily usage.
That difference, according to Nielsen, is what helps close the gap between men and women and TV time. When consoles are factored in, women spend a total of 4 hours and 33 minutes in front of their televisions each day. Men spend 4 hours and 22 minutes in front of their sets.
Nielsen's study does not include time in front of other screens, such as smartphones, tablets, or PC monitors, so it's not clear how much time the average person spends in front of a screen all day. However, considering we're spending over four hours in front of a television, actual screen time might be significantly higher.
In August, Google commissioned its own study on screen time around the world. The company found that the average person spends 4.4 hours of their leisure time in front of screens. In addition, the company found that 90 percent of all entertainment comes by the way of a screen, leaving only 10 percent to radio and print.