Beside the point of this article I'm amazed by the following: "The average person spends 1704 hours a year watching TV".

From my understanding an average work year is around 2000 hours. If 'the average person' worked in an enjoyable environment that was as pleasant as watching television or reading a book they could easily almost double their input at the workplace by cutting out television.

Whether that would double their output is a different question all together.

Would be interesting to see a breakdown of time spent watching television vs. per capita productivity for different first world countries.