You could say baseball has struck out as America's favorite pastime, because Americans would apparently rather watch TV than head to the ballpark.
Most Americans prefer to fill their spare time watching television than doing just about anything else, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Nearly 80 percent of people living in the United States are watching TV on any given day. Television viewing swallows up more than half of all the time Americans spend on sports and leisure activities, according to data from the BLS's American Time Use Survey.
From 2013 to 2017, people 15 and older spent about 2 hours and 46 minutes a day watching TV — 55.2 percent of their total spare time — when they could have been doing pretty much anything else they wanted.
That TV time includes watching recorded TV shows, live programming, DVDs, and streaming content on TVs, computers, and portable devices. It does not include time spent watching a film in a movie theater.
Men watch about a half-hour more TV than women each day.
Older people and the unemployed watch the most TV, while parents with small children watch the least. Older people and the unemployed spent the most time watching TV. Americans over the age of 65 are the nation's biggest couch potatoes. They spend the most time — 4 and a half hours per day — in front of the tube.
TV watching also varies by geography. Residents in the American South are among the nation's most ardent TV viewers. People living in several of the Rocky Mountain states and in the Northeast tend to watch the least.
你可以说棒球是美国人最喜爱的消遣，因为美国人显然喜欢看电视（棒球赛）而不是前往赛场。
根据美国劳工统计局的数据，大多数美国人喜欢在闲暇时间看电视而不是做其他任何事情。
生活在美国的人中每天都有近80％的人在看电视。根据劳工局的美国人时间利用调查数据显示，美国人在体育和休闲活动上花费的时间有一半以上是在看电视上。
从2013年到2017年，15岁及以上的人每天看电视大约2小时46分钟，这占他们总闲暇时间的55.2％，而他们可以用这些时间做几乎任何他们想做的事。
电视时间包括在电视、电脑和移动设备上观看预录的电视节目、现场直播节目、DVD和流媒体内容，但不包括在电影院观看电影所花费的时间。
数据还显示，男性每天看电视的时间比女性多半小时。
老年人和失业者看电视的人数最多，而有小孩的父母看电视的人数最少。65岁以上的美国人是坐在沙发上看电视时间最多的人群，平均每天4个半小时。
看电视的时间也因地理位置而有不同。美国南部的居民是全美最热心的电视观众之一，而居住在落基山脉州和东北部的人们往往看得最少。