Gregory+O's+OpEd+Article

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** "The Few Minutes We All Hate" **

** by Greg O. **
We’ve all been there. Sitting on the couch, enjoying our favorite show, and then all of the sudden we have to endure the 5 minutes of agony called “a commercial”. With few exceptions, perhaps only the super bowl, commercials have become pesky interruptions that hinder viewer enjoyment. Doesn’t it sting, just a little bit, when you are left on a cliffhanger in wake of a commercial, especially when you have to bear ridiculous facts about shake weights and nutrislim? Yes, from personal experience, I believe it does. Anticipation may build from such suspense, but blatantly long and boring commercials have a way of hampering the moment. Commercials should be limited for their disturbance of viewer pleasure. According to the combined researchers of the California State Universities, the average 65 year old would have spent over 9 years watching the television. Wow. That is frightening. Researchers also attested that the average American watches about 4 hours of the tube daily. What is this world coming to? Yet another scary fact remains, about 4 and half years of those 9 years are spent watching…commercials. Get this; by the time you’re 65, the California State University education system reported that you would have seen in upwards of some 2 million commercials. Imagine what you could've done in 4.5 years of your life, had they not been occupied by silly advertisements. If some of the facts I’ve presented aren’t already bad enough, I’ve got another bombshell. Commercials help promote obesity. Now that comment may seem obtuse, yet according to multiple sources, fast food advertisements are the most numerous and prominent commercials observed by children in America. No wonder Ronald McDonald has served over 100 billion customers, and no wonder two-thirds of America is either obese or overweight. Commercials are clearly problematic not only to obesity and loss of valuable time, but simply to convenience and enjoyment. Moreover, I don’t watch 4 hours of T.V. daily, and I will try to witness fewer than 2 million commercials in my lifetime, but I’m not everyone. People, especially Americans, are starting to fall into a scary trend, not only of watching far too much T.V., but spending vast amounts of precious time wrapped up in advertisements that have little to no value to most of the people that see them. Commercial advertisements are quite annoying I think, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other people agreed with me. I don’t think that a 15 billion dollar industry can ever be truly stopped, but I do think that it can be limited, for viewer pleasure, and for other negative factors stemming from commercial breaks. As the clever Sinclair Lewis once articulated, “ Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.