Article: Watching television is more lethal than smoking cigarettes.(Commentary)(Editorials)(Letters)

I would rather have my kids hooked on tobacco than hooked on television. Anti-smoking advocates claim that each cigarette takes 10 minutes off a person's life. At a pack a day, a person who begins smoking at 16 and continues to 65 stands to lose seven years off the end of his or her life.

Compared to the life one loses from watching television, this is not so bad. The average American watches 32 hours of television a week. Surveys show that most Americans watch junk programs such as soaps, talk shows and MTV. For all practical purposes, this is dead time. Hours that could have been spent ...

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