Out of School Activities

Television Still Wins Out

The attractions of phones, tablets, desktops and computer games are many and varied but we found that it is still watching TV that is the most popular or all the out of school activities.

Our question this week was “What activities do you spend at least an hour a day doing when you’re not at school?” and “Watching Television” got the most votes with 21.4%. The second most popular answer was “Playing sport/doing physical exercise” so that explodes the myth that computer games take up all of children’s time.

CLICK TO SEE A PLETHORA OF CHILDREN'S SURVEYS

The Rise and Rise of the Television

Can you imagine a world without TVs? Incredible as it may seem, many of our student’s grandparents can not only imagine it, they can REMEMBER it! Anyone older than 70 can probably remember when the first TVs began to appear in their town, village or street because until about 1955 televisions were something that could be afforded only by the wealthiest people.

Between 1955 and 1975 the use of televisions boomed and since 1975 over 95% of households have had a TV. There is a graph that illustrates this very well at Television ownership in private domestic households.

If you have a liking for statistics then here is another amazing fact… In the early 1950s TVs were invariably black and white – that’s right, no colour just black, white and many shades of grey in between. But the amazing thing is that 7,000 households in the UK are STILL watching black and white TV – see The Guardian.

Get Fit – Get Happy!

About 19% of our survey respondents say they do an hour or more sports and physical exercise each day and that’s great BUT we worry a little about the 81% of you that don’t! Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not here to lecture you about the benefits of exercise (no doubt you hear about that all the time from your teachers) but here’s the big thing…

Fit people are almost invariably happier than unfit people! Oh sure, the medical professionals will tell you that by getting fit you have less chance of a heart attack, less chance of getting diabetes, more chance of living longer, blah, blah, blah. But let’s face it when you are in your teens with your whole life in front of you, those medical facts about later life don’t really feature highly so let’s consider a few happier thoughts.

If you’re fit you can do more things - playing sport, climbing mountains, on-foot sightseeing, running to catch a bus are all more fun and more enjoyable.

Take a look at the before and after pictures at Nerd Fitness and read a few of their free articles. You’ll see that getting fit doesn’t necessarily mean getting boring!

Activities Out of School

This week the respondents could choose more than one activity to vote for so these are the results from a total of 2,361 votes:

MORE SURVEYS