As the fall television season premieres, students may be awaiting the return of their favorite shows or barely turning on the tube.

With hit shows returning, including “The Office,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives” and “CSI,” college students may be putting their homework aside for more than a few hours this week.

Traditionally, college students watch less television than other demographics because they are usually busy socializing or studying, said John Consoli, senior editor for network television at Media Week magazine.

The basic network channels, including ABC, NBC and CBS typically attract older viewers because of their older characters, which makes many college viewers more likely to turn on the CW or cable networks, such as MTV or VH1.

Comedy Central is also popular among college-age students with shows like “South Park”, “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”, Robert Thompson, professor of TV and Pop Culture at Syracuse University, said.

Since the writer’s strike, experts are unsure how ratings will be for the year.

“I was so annoyed by the strike, but I guess it was an OK break,” said Demonique Brown, senior in Media. “But I don’t know what I would do without TV. Study?”

Many popular shows were off the air for several months last season until an agreement was reached.

“The audiences were a lot lower when the shows came back after the strike,” Consoli said. “It got people out of the habit of watching television. But, if the first few days of the new season is any indication, people are back.”

With the evolution of YouTube and Internet downloading for episodes, fewer students may be watching on actual television sets.

Becky Horton, senior in ACES, said that although she watched two to three hours of television per day, she watches a lot of programs online if she misses an episode.

“Students have laptops wherever they go,” said Thompson. “The Internet delivers video and allows them to watch their favorite shows at times when they otherwise could not have watched them.”

One genre of television not ignored by students is reality TV.

“Reality programming is much lighter, you can come in and out without getting too involved,” Consoli said.

Shows like “The Hills,” “Survivor” and the “Real World” have found immense success in the reality world.

“It’s different; it’s not just another cop show, lawyer show or doctor show,” Thompson said. “Its voyeuristic. A little bit of cheesy garbage is what the doctor ordered sometimes. It’s like a masterpiece of stupidity.”

One problem with watching television is that instead of having three basic network options as in the past, people now have cable that can include hundreds of channels, Thompson added.

These days, there is not one show for all viewers to gather around with the same popularity of past shows like Friends, Frasier or Seinfeld because those shows only come around once in a while, Thompson said.

“You have some shows with die-hard fans like ‘Grey’s’ or ‘Gossip Girl,’ but nothing really across the board,” he said.

While some students have been counting down the days until their favorite premiere, the Center for Screen-Time Awareness will not, and is celebrating their screen turnoff week through Saturday. The event used to be called a TV turnoff week, but now includes other forms of technology, such as the Internet, and iPods.

“We usually hold a turnoff week in April, but we are starting one in September as well because the rates of obesity here and around the world continue to grow,” said Robert Kesten, executive director of the Center for Screen-Time Awareness.

Kesten said the danger comes when people allow technology to replace other forms of communication and the way humans look at socialization and friendship.

“For many people the screen has become the drug of the 21st century,” Kesten said. “It is the easiest and most economical way to escape. Technology should enhance our lives, not take over our lives.”