American households average nearly 8 hours of TV watched per day, according to Nielsen, a market-research firm—and that’s not counting time spent streaming on computers or mobile devices. The Nielsen data count any time when at least one person is watching TV in the household. So in Nielsen’s methodology, if three people watch a program for two hours, that still counts as only two hours, not six. Clearly, Americans love their shows.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in the years 2013–2017, Americans spent about 55 percent of their leisure time watching TV. Unlike Nielsen, the BLS included in its figures any video consumption, whether cable TV proper or movies and videos on computers, phones, and tablets.
These are staggering figures. It would take a whole series of articles to try to explain why Americans spend so much time in front of the tube, though perhaps one of the main reasons is Robert Putnam’s thesis that Americans have largely withdrawn from communal activities and social and civic engagement. Where evening entertainment used to be found around the hearth or at the dance hall, supper club, bowling alley, or neighborhood park, people today want a relaxation environment that they have control over and that allows for passive consumption. Educator John Senior says of TV, “Its two principal defects are its radical passivity, physical and imaginative, and its distortion of reality.”
The purpose of this article is to offer 10 ideas for family activities that don’t involve a screen—10 undertakings more rooted in the real. These activities present enjoyable, relaxing, and healthy alternatives to binge-watching the latest hit series, and they can also help build bonds within families, neighborhoods, and communities. Consider challenging yourself to a TV fast for a few weeks and try these pastimes instead.
Play a Game or Sport
You might struggle the first time you miss the broadcast of the big game on the weekend, but a love of sports doesn’t have to be confined to the sofa. In the words of Senior, “If you really like football, get out on Saturdays and play it with the boys.” Then there are board games, card games, and even Victorian parlor games to try—who doesn’t want to play a game with the sophisticated name “The Minister’s Cat”? Or “Squeak Piggy Squeak”? Other favorites in my circles include “Four on a Couch” and “Psychiatrist.”Play Music Together
Shakespeare tells us, “The man that hath no music in himself / Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds / Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.” And again, he says that music is “the food of love.” It is also traditionally the food of a healthy home life. Learning a few folk songs requires less effort than most people think. If someone knows piano or guitar, all the better. The sweet sounds will swell inside your living room, and they’ll be all the sweeter when composed of the voices of your own family and not some distant pop star over the radio. In the days before electric lights, friends and family could still keep company through song long after the shadows had fallen.
Visit Friends and Neighbors
Do you know your neighbors? If not, now’s the time to rectify that. Bring them cookies. They may be remarkable people. Or, if you feel less adventurous, invite over all your family friends for a party. You might include a theme, such as “medieval dress only.”Read or Read Aloud
Countless benefits flow from reading aloud to your kids, such as improved vocabulary and communication skills, instilling of heroic values, improved test scores, increase in empathy, and bonding between parent and child. A wealth of wisdom and delight lies open to us through our libraries, whether personal or public. Search out the classics. There’s a reason they’ve been treasured generation after generation.Go for a Walk
And bring a field guide. While it’s great to just enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds, learning the names and habits of the various birds, animals, insects, trees, and plants you encounter adds depth and pleasure to the experience. Kids will enjoy the challenge of trying to match specimens to the entries in the guidebook.Handcraft a Project
This item combines well with reading aloud, especially for people who like to keep their hands at work. Sewing, embroidering, fly-tying, knitting, carving, or even just doing a puzzle as a group brings together relaxing physical movements, bonding time, and the satisfaction of making something useful or beautiful by your own efforts.Cook a Multi-Course Meal Together
Even if you’re no great chef, planning an evening of cooking can be a chance to experiment and have fun. Try making something you’ve never made. Spread the tablecloth. Light the candles. Bring out the family silver (if you’re lucky enough to have such an heirloom). Serve multiple courses. Dress to the nines. Some family members might even like being waiters or waitresses for the night.Host a Traditional Square Dance
Again, this activity is not so difficult as you might imagine, though it will take more work than most of the other items on this list. You will need to find a fiddler (ideally with a backup guitarist), a caller, and a large open space. Absurd though it may sound, I’ve never attended a square dance where I haven’t seen huge grins on the faces of everyone, young and old alike, by the night’s end—even if very few have prior dancing experience. You can find many resources online to begin the process.Star Gaze
Maybe try to identify the constellations and the Greek myths associated with them. Or simply lie there and stare at the grandeur of it all.Just Talk
Quality conversation is an art, little practiced, and the substrata on which true human connection and relationships are built. In some sense, too, it’s the sustaining force of human rationality itself. If you need help getting started, snag a pack of Questions for Humans conversation cards.Re-creation
Recreation has the word “creation” in it, and that should tell us something. Recreation used to mean producing something, making your own fun, not just passively consuming “entertainment” generated by mega-corporations for their own financial and often political benefit.And really, our free time ought to go further than mere recreation. The true understanding of the term “leisure” encompasses something even more important and noble than fun and relaxation. It’s among the highest human acts—just existing in the moment and celebrating all that is good in this world. According to Philosopher Josef Pieper in “Leisure the Basis of Culture,” “Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion—in the real.”
Take back your free time and make it truly free—the freedom that goes with living out our human potential in all its fullness.
