Couch Potatoes

Czytanka z lektorem (podcast) dotycząca idiomu couch potato

A couch is a sofa, such as people have in their sitting-rooms, often in front of the television. Some people spend a lot of time sitting on the couch watching television, and probably getting fat for want of exercise. We have a name for such people in English – couch potatoes. And, as British people are well known for watching TV a lot, perhaps we are a nation of couch potatoes.

Google, the company that runs the internet search engine, has just published a survey which claims that British people now spend more time on the internet than they do watching television – 164 minutes a day on average on the internet, 148 minutes watching television.

It was only about 10 years ago that people first started to access the internet from home computers. Now, according to Google, everyone in Britain spends the equivalent of 41 days a year surfing the net. Of course, this figure includes net access at work as well as at home. Still, if true, it is astonishing. Moreover, the time that Google says we spend watching TV and the time we spend on the net, added together, comes to over 5 hours a day. Can this really be true? Are we British now a nation of couch-and-computer potatoes? If I search the web, can I find a website with more information about this?

Wyjaśnienie i znaczenie idiomu couch potato