Paraphrase: The self-confessed television addict often feels he “ought” to do other things - but the fact that he doesn’

[answerhappygod]

Paraphrase:
The self-confessed television addict
often feels he “ought” to do other things - but the fact that he
doesn’t read and doesn’t plant his garden or sew or crochet or play
games or have conversation means that those activities are not
longer as desirable as television. In a way the heavy
viewer’s life as imbalanced by his television “habit” as a
drug addict’s or an alcoholic’s. He is living in a holding
pattern, as it were, passing up the activities that lead to growth
or development or a sense of accomplishment. This is one
reason people talk about their television viewing so ruefully, so
apologetically. They are aware that it is an unproductive
experience, that almost any other endeavour is more worthwhile by
any human measure.
By Marie Winn, from “Television
Addiction” in The Plug-In Drug (Viking Penguin, 2002)