People watched more TV in a recession, duh.
Over the last 8 years, all the new, non-TV things—Facebook, phones, YouTube, Netflix—have only cut about an hour per day from the dizzying amount of TV that the average household watches. Americans are still watching more than 7 hours and 50 minutes per household per day.
I kinda love TV. Commercials are perks. I'm not trying to say that I like commercials or want to watch them, but they're very conveniently spaced breaks so you can wander off and do something else and not lose track of what's going on so much. I realized I often put TV on to only half-watch it. One cannot half-watch Netflix shows if one cares about them at all.
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You can't exercise for 8 hours a day people would call you compulsive. You can't cook for 8 hours a day people would call you fat. Or your job would be to be a chef.
You could maybe read 8 hours a day, and I think TV should be compared more to reading than to other activities as I feel the two are most equitable in nature.
Lots of things that are really good for you, you just can't do for 8 hours at a time. That was a silly, stupid sentence of the author's.