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Media The Internet United States

US Adults Will Spend More Than Half the Day Consuming Media, Study Says (emarketer.com) 51

An anonymous reader shares a report from marketing research firm eMarketer: Thanks to multitasking, US adults' average daily time spent with major media will slightly exceed 12 hours this year, according to eMarketer's latest report. But while our reports early in the decade told a story of robust gains -- with increases in digital usage more than compensating for declines in time spent with nondigital media -- growth has been petering out. Of course, media multitasking is what has made so much usage possible. That is how the figure for time spent can add up to 12 hours a day.
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US Adults Will Spend More Than Half the Day Consuming Media, Study Says

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Because USB sticks and DVDs are crunchy and delicious with milk.

    *BURP*

  • by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday May 01, 2017 @03:07PM (#54336283)
    I know math isn't a top subject for Slashdot editors these days, but 12 hours is 3/4 of a 16-hour day, where 16 hours is a 24-hour day minus 8 hours of sleep.
    • It's not a math error; they just aren't excluding sleep. A day is 24 hours, regardless of however much of it is spent watching Lightspeed Briefs sponsored content.
  • by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Monday May 01, 2017 @03:07PM (#54336285) Homepage
    How can an employed adult spend 12 hours on media? Either they don't work yet or they don't work any more!
  • Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Monday May 01, 2017 @03:18PM (#54336395) Homepage

    "And note our method of accounting for simultaneous usage: If someone spends an hour watching TV (for example) and uses a smartphone to surf the web during the same hour, we count this as an hour of usage for each medium, and hence as 2 hours of total media time."

    So if you watch a program and browse a website during the advert break, that counts twice (one hour each of TV and surfing for one hour)?

    And if you browse 12 websites a day, one an hour for a fraction of a second each, that could count as 12 hours of usage on its own.

    Shitty statistics present shitty conclusions.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday May 01, 2017 @03:28PM (#54336483)

    At least that is what I read from the summary. It sounds a bit like if you leave your web-browser open at Facebook, that counts as "time spent with major media". If so, then this figure is basically nonsense.

    • This makes sense-- consuming multiple inputs at once should go up as the "Luddites" die off. I would expect this to go above 12 hours in the near future.

      As studies show, people who are used to over stimulation, they can filter it out better and focus on what matters better. So if you combine that with an addiction of heavy stimulation without an ability to focus longer than a goldfish you get somebody who has a strong need for many inputs so that they can jump around constantly--- like a channel surfer ad

      • Not sure what studies you are referring to, but, every study I'm aware of shows that multi-tasking ability is very rare and what the vast majority of "multi-taskers" do is actually task switching. The human brain can do one thing and one thing alone at a time that requires higher functions. Task-switching comes at a cost from switching away from a task, remembering prior context, and then picking up the mental thread. Not efficient.

        Your post if unfocused, are you one of those context-switchers?

        • I can't find the study, I read it this year... I must not have been clear, I didn't say that these gamers have multitasking abilities they simply have been proven to FILTER input better so all those distractions do not impede them like normal people. They don't have to focus on as many things at a time despite having an overwhelming amount of input. It is like learning to hear 1 person out of a crowd of people - better filtering means less time wasted on hearing their words. Or how when reading is made m

          • I see. It sounds like they don't have multitasking abilities at all but rather an improved ability to focus. An ability to multitask would definitely mean that they can do more than one thing at a time and it sounds like that is not what you mean at all. So, I think we agree, people can focus on only one thing at a time. Gamers have an improved ability to filter out irrelevant data, interestingly, this is similar to what one can achieve through meditation (namely an improved focus).

  • Pigs still not flying, hell still warm. Carry on.

  • Unless they greatly redefine "consuming major media" to include things like playing video games, listening to CDs, googling things like "java how to make an object", or google "kim kardashian's tits please".

    In other words, unless they define "consuming major media" to stuff everyone does every day anyways it's horseshit.

    Hmmm, now that I think about it.... I watch the news getting ready for work. Listen to the radio (DSC for the win) driving to work. Listen to CDs/podcasts at work. Listen to a CD on
    • I guess it is true, the internet knows everything.

      But wow, you consume like 87 hours of media a week. That's insane. You should get out more.

  • I spend more than that on solitaire.....

    I am not addicted, I can quit any time I want.

Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

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