{"id":39741,"date":"2017-08-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/in-time-spent-on-social-media-you-could-read-200-books\/"},"modified":"2017-08-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T00:00:00","slug":"in-time-spent-on-social-media-you-could-read-200-books","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/in-time-spent-on-social-media-you-could-read-200-books\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Time Spent on Social Media You Could Read 200 Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an article on Quartz, author Charles Chu claims, &quot;In the time you spend on social media each year, you could read 200 books.&quot; Here&#39;s how the math behind that claim breaks down:<\/p>\n\n<p>First, to read 200 books, simply spend 417 hours a year reading. If you&#39;re thinking, <em>How can I possibly read for 417 hours?<\/em> Chu writes:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>417 hours. That sure feels like a lot. But what does 417 hours really mean? Let&#39;s try to get some more perspective. Here&#39;s how much time a single American spends on social media and TV in a year:<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\t<li>608 hours on social media<\/li>\n\n\t<li>1642 hours on TV<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Wow. That&#39;s 2250 hours a year spent on TRASH. If those hours were spent reading instead, you could be reading over 1,000 books a year!<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Chu, who is not writing from a Christian perspective, offers some challenging words to all followers of Christ: &quot;Here&#39;s the simple truth behind reading a lot of books [or the Bible]: It&#39;s not that hard. We have all the time we need. The scary part&mdash;the part we all ignore&mdash;is that we are too addicted, too weak, and too distracted to do what we all know is important&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[410],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3380,3487,3518,3655,3726,3808,4112,4207,4272,4708,4754,4916,5013,5043,5160],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-39741","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-addiction","tax_ctp_tags-bible-reading","tax_ctp_tags-boundaries","tax_ctp_tags-computers","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-distractions","tax_ctp_tags-habits","tax_ctp_tags-idols","tax_ctp_tags-internet","tax_ctp_tags-priorities","tax_ctp_tags-quiet-time","tax_ctp_tags-self-discipline","tax_ctp_tags-social-trends","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-discipline","tax_ctp_tags-time-management"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In the Time Spent on Social Media You Could Read 200 Books - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/in-time-spent-on-social-media-you-could-read-200-books\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In the Time Spent on Social Media You Could Read 200 Books - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In an article on Quartz, author Charles Chu claims, &quot;In the time you spend on social media each year, you could read 200 books.&quot; Here&#039;s how the math behind that claim breaks down: First, to read 200 books, simply spend 417 hours a year reading. 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