High School

19. In 2000, people in the United States over age 2 watched television for a total of 386 billion hours. The population of the United States over age 2 was about 265 million people.

a. Write each number in scientific notation.

b. Find the average number of hours of TV viewing per person older than age 2 for 2000. Show your steps.

c. On average, how many hours per day did each person older than age 2 watch television in 2000? Show your steps.

Answer :

In 2000, the total hours of TV watching (386 billion) and the population (265 million) were expressed in scientific notation. The average hours per person per day was approximately 0.004, or 14.57 minutes.

a. Writing each number in scientific notation:

Total hours of TV watching: 386 billion hours = 3.86 x 10^2 billion hours.

Population: 265 million people = 2.65 x 10^2 million people.

b. Finding the average number of hours of TV viewing per person older than age 2 for 2000:

Average hours per person = Total hours / Population

Average hours per person = 3.86 x 10^2 billion hours / 2.65 x 10^2 million people

To simplify, you can cancel out the units (billion hours and million people) to get the result in hours per person.

Average hours per person = 3.86 / 2.65 hours

Average hours per person ≈ 1.457 hours

c. On average, how many hours per day did each person older than age 2 watch television in 2000:

Assuming people watched TV evenly throughout the year, you can use the fact that there are approximately 365 days in a year:

Average hours per day = Average hours per person / Days in a year

Average hours per day = 1.457 hours / 365 days

Average hours per day ≈ 0.004 hours per day

So, on average, each person older than age 2 watched approximately 0.004 hours (or 14.57 minutes) of television per day in the year 2000.