I heard on the radio once that the average Canadian/American watches on average 5 hours of TV a night and the average student watches any where form 3-5 hours of TV a night.
I am one of those people for the most part would fit that scenario. I do watch a lot of TV but if it went away, it would be an adjustment but well there is always things like music, podcast, audio books to name a few as an 'alternative. In a way it would more of a conscious decision to do one of them as I think it is more natural to have the TV just on in the back ground. (The TV is currently on now but it is playing music, knowing that it would be just as engaging if the screen was off or if the radio was on as an alternative).
Does TV create a 'dead' type of society? Maybe but I don't tend to associate with those type of people. I tend to associate with people who are moving forward in their lives and are wanting to learning and to do more.
The idea of reading 75 pages a day came from a time in elementary school where they were trying to encourage students to read more and you would get rewards if you ended up reading X number of pages by a certain time. I attempted this goal but of course it was on someone else's terms so I soon lost interest in this. Elementary school is also the place where they try to install certain behaviours in your life, like reading for 15 minutes a day and having a parent sign off on it. If you had parents like mine, you had to sit in front of them ad reading so they know you were actually doing it.
The idea is that if it takes you 2 minutes to read 1 page (back and front) and you read for 1 hour and 15 minutes a night then you will read 75 pages a night and you will read a 525 page every 7 days. One hour and fifteen minutes does not seem like a long time and reading a book every week doesn't seem so hard now does it?
If you watch 5 hours of TV a day but take 1 hour and 15 minutes out to read instead, (reading can consist of any books, magazines or any online method of reading that you find useful. You want to enjoy what you are reading. You want to be able to retain and not hate what is going on) you will have 3 hours and 45 minutes to watch what ever you want! Plenty of time to listen to music, watch a drama and a comedy a few times over. Maybe a podcast or 2 or video on line.
Your time can be spent in any way that you want don't get me wrong but this is just an idea of how reading can become more of your daily or regular life without taking a lot of time out of your day.