• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Analysis: Americans Score 9/24 on Media Junkie Scale - Survey

Posted on: Thursday, 6 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

Text of editorial analysis by Peter Feuilherade of BBC Monitoring Media Services on 6 October

That elusive person described as "the average American" is a voracious consumer of media, who spends nine hours a day watching TV, surfing the web and talking on a mobile phone - more time than he or she is asleep.

That's according to a survey published by US researchers at Ball State University, Indiana.

One-third of those nine hours is devoted to using two or more media at the same time, notes Bob Papper, a telecommunications professor who jointly wrote the survey. "This is arguably in excess of anything we would have envisaged 10 years ago," Papper commented.

His team surveyed media take-up over 5,000 hours among an admittedly small sample of 400 people. They tracked how consumers used 15 different media and gadgets including television, books, magazines, mobile phones, the internet, instant messenging and e- mail.

Among the survey's key findings:

- "Media use is the biggest single activity in our observed day ... and undoubtedly the biggest life activity of all.

- "TV is still the 800 pound media gorilla... but while radio remained in second place (barely) by incidence, computer use came in a strong second (although just over half the average amount of time of TV use).

- "On average, respondents spent more time with the computer than any other medium with the single exception of the TV (including online activities such as web, email or instant messaging and offline desktop software).

- "A majority of media exposure - 56.9 per cent - took place in the home, but 21.1 per cent took place at work, 8.3 per cent in the car and 13.7 per cent in other locations.

"Although not the most significant medium in terms of time spent, the telephone (landline and mobile phone combined) reaches the most people in any given day (94.6 per cent)."

Computers catch up

The survey confirms many long-held assumptions about how Americans use the media, including the television set's dominance in American homes.

Separate figures produced by Nielsen Media this week confirm that American families are watching more TV today than they were a decade ago.In the year from September 2004 to September 2005, the average American family viewed eight hours and 11 minutes of TV programming a day, 2.7 per cent up from the previous year. A decade ago, from September 1994-95, average total viewing was seven hours and 15 minutes.

But the Indiana study appears to overturn the cliche that younger people are the heaviest users of the web. It found that 18 to 24- year-olds spend less time online than any other age group, except for the over-65s.

The survey found despite the dominance of television, computers were catching up fast.

"When we combine time spent on the web, using e-mail, instant messaging and software such as word processing, the computer eclipses all other media with the single exception of television," Bob Papper said.

A survey earlier this year by the US's Pew Internet and American Life project found that on a typical day in late 2004, 70 million Americans went online - a figure 37 per cent higher than four years previously.

These numbers are set to rise in the future as the launch of various different delivery methods, including WiMax and 3G, among others, bring high-speed mobile internet to millions more consumers.

Spending on internet advertising is projected to increase in 2006 by anywhere from 12 to 27 per cent, according to US media analysts.

But newspapers, despite circulation concerns and competition from the internet, continue to attract more advertising than any other major media: 46.7bn dollars in 2004.

Source: BBC Monitoring Media

More News in this Category