Korean singer PSY has brought the progress of modern civilization to a grinding halt.
OK, we're exaggerating wildly. But recently The Economist did a rather interesting calculation around PSY's viral sensation "Gangnam Style," which as of June has been viewed more than two billion times on YouTube. The British news and business magazine totalled the time that has been spent watching the four-minute video since it was released in July, 2012. It added up to 140 million hours -- 16,000 years.
The Economist then asked the question, "What humanity could achieve if it weren't galloping in front of computer screens?" Comparing the person-hours spent watching "Gangnam Style" to the time it took to build some of the world's most famous monuments, The Economist reckoned we could have built four Great Pyramids of Giza, five Stonehenges, or constructed the Empire State Building 20 times over.
From YouTube to Facebook to the latest episode of Game of Thrones -- oh, how we love our time-wasters. But here's a question: when was the last time you said, or had someone say to you, "Oh I'd love to do that, but I'm too busy." If today's society has a catchphrase, it's "too busy." One study finds Canadians saying they are too busy to sit down and eat proper, nutritious meals.
Another discovers that, on voting day, almost a quarter of Canadians say they are too busy to exercise their most important democratic responsibility. When people who don't volunteer are asked why not, 67 per cent say they don't have enough time.
Lest anyone think we're scolding, we admit that we all too often enter a plea of "too busy." We used to make a point of calling our parents to chat at least a few times every week. Now it's once a week -- if mom and dad are lucky. Sure we're busy, but a phone call takes 10 minutes. We have no real excuse except for the one served up by society. We're caught in the busy trap.
To be fair, time wasters are important. As the proverb goes, "all work and no play make Jack a dull boy." And after a day of non-stop meetings that have left your brain melting out your ears, sometimes you really just need to spend a few minutes watching that web interview with Peter Dinklage, hoping for a hint about who George R.R. Martin intends to kill off next. And sometimes, you really do need to do the iconic Gangnam Style gallop.
But there's a difference between a little vegging out and spending so much time in front of a screen that you take root.
A survey of 28,000 people conducted last August by Google concluded that Canadians spend 90 per cent of our free time staring at a screen -- be it a TV, computer monitor, tablet or smartphone. The average Canadian spends 30 hours a week in front of the boob tube, according to a 2013 survey by TV rating firm BBM Canada.
If you want a shock, Time magazine's web site has a widget that scans your Facebook feed to calculate how much of your life you've spent glued to the popular social networking site. Incidentally, according to Facebook statistics, 74 per cent of Canada's 19-million Facebook users check our accounts at least once a day. That makes us the most active Facebook users in the world.
Fortunately we're not completely screen-addicted. Last year's annual consumer survey conducted by Booknet Canada found that, while TV remains the top leisure activity for Canadians, it is followed closely by reading books, and spending time with our families.
Nevertheless, it all goes to show that, just maybe, we aren't quite so busy as we think we are. And reflecting on The Economist revelation, just what might we accomplish if we all subtracted a few hours screen time each week and devoted them to helping clean up the local park, coaching a kids' sports team, or visiting the residents of a seniors' home? If one-million Canadians gave just one hour a week, at the end of one year the person hours would be equal to building more than five CN Towers!
New Year's is long past, its resolutions vanished with the winter snow. Why not start afresh with a summer resolution? Game of Thrones is over for the season anyway. Instead of shifting from one screen to another, pick one activity you thought you were "too busy" for -- volunteering, joining a summer rec league, or summer stock theatre -- and go do it.
After all, it's summer. With apologies to PSY, there are so many more fun things to do than watching a man in a tuxedo pretend to ride a horse.
Craig and Marc Kielburger are co-founders of international charity and educational partner, Free The Children. Its youth empowerment event, We Day, is in 11 cities across North America this year, inspiring more than 160,000 attendees from over 4,000 schools. For more information, visit www.weday.com.
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