Today, leisure time in our society is much different from the way it was twenty years ago. For many of Americans, leisure time doesn"t exist at all. Magazine ads and TV commercials show how technology has affected the way people spend their past time. People are running either errands leaving no time at all to relax, or they are most likely spending their past time watching television, playing video games, or surfing the net.

             For example, the American Heart Association placed ads in many magazines encouraging people to limit their time that is spent watching television. The ad was simply an overweight man sitting on a couch in front of a TV with a bold caption above him reading, "Get Off the Couch." The point that the AHA was trying to get through was that spending a lot of time on the couch watching TV could be unhealthy. .

             The television is now a part of every home. Years ago, a television in the livingroom was considered a luxury, today a house without a TV is rare. The television is part of our everyday lives. To show how big a factor TV is in America today, you can compare the number of channels you had ten years ago to the number you have now. For many people, the number might not have changed, but for most Americans, it certainly has. Today there are satellite dishes that can receive more than two hundred channels, there is digital cable that can do the same, and the basic cable that most people receive can get more than a hundred channels. The satellite dish itself has evolved. Ten years ago, you would need to purchase another acre of land to put up a dish that couldn"t receive a quarter of the channels that the new, more compact dishes can.

             Many people don"t realize how much time they spend watching TV. Young kids watch hours of TV after school, and adults watch after work. They want to catch their favorite program or movie, and when they know that they won"t be able to, they set the VCR to record it so they can watch it later.