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A few decades ago, the Telly was the undisputed hub of entertainment in well-nigh all United states households. A new report from the government'due south Energy Data Agency (Eia) shows that Americans ain fewer TVs on average than they did just a few years ago. In fact, the number of households with no TVs has doubled since 2009. The agency blames it on — you guessed it — those darn kids and their smartphones.

This new survey was actually conducted in 2022 and asked v,600 US residents how many TVs they had in their dwelling. The EIA does this survey periodically because Tv set usage is a sizable component of energy usage in many homes (it'south estimated to be 6% of all free energy usage). As the size of screens and resolution increases, so too does the corporeality of ability they eat.

A set might exist running for hours per solar day, perchance more than ane of them if family members can't come together and agree on what to watch. Interestingly, the number of homes with three or more TVs has increased every time the survey was done in 1997, 2001, 2005, and 2009. The newly released 2022 survey is the first time that metric has gone down. It was 44% in 2009 and only 39% in 2022.

In add-on to the driblet in homes with three or more TVs, the number of homes with only one or two televisions went upwardly. That had been on a steady decline in all by surveys. This may indicate that people who used to have TVs in every room have downsized to simply have one or ii nicer TVs in mutual areas. Then there are homes with no TVs at all. That figure has been hovering around 1.three% in all previous years, but information technology jumped to 2.vi% this time.

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The Environmental impact assessment has not yet gone into extensive detail about what is causing this shift, but information technology cites some interesting trends. Older people are more likely to accept more televisions, which should come equally no surprise. Onetime habits are hard to break, and younger people have oftentimes grown up with computers and mobile devices equally a core part of the content consumption. When they move out on their own, some of them only have no use for a TV. The written report also notes that older households too take a higher concentration of desktop computers, whereas younger ones are heavy on mobile devices and laptops.

A more detailed version of the report will be released in April of this twelvemonth. That may reply a few more questions about how Americans will swallow content in the near time to come.