LOS ANGELES, April 4 (Xinhua) -- A study showed that people in western states watch less television than those living in other regions of the United States, especially the Midwest.

According to the study released by verizonspecial.com Wednesday, people in Utah spend the shortest time on TV, with residents there watching TV for an average of two hours and 13 minutes each day.

West Virginians watch more television than people in any other state in the country with an average of 4.5 hours a day, adding up to 1,642.5 hours a year.

Nationwide, western states, including Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington, Montana and California, along with Minnesota, Vermont, and Maine, lead the country in terms of spending least time on TV.

Among the western states, only people in Nevada spend more than three hours on TV on average, but in the Midwest, almost every state, except Wisconsin and Tennessee, spends over 3 hours per day.

The study also found that the four western states with the most national parks - California and Alaska, which each has eight; Utah, which has five; and Colorado, which has four - watch significantly less TV than the rest of the country.

"Could they be too busy being outside to watch TV?" the study said.

The report was based on data from the 2017 American Time Use Survey conducted by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The research team then found each state's favorite TV genre using search data from Google Trends between January and December 2018.