Legal Research

8 Hours a Day Looking At a Screen? Welcome To My World!

Today’s NY Times reports on a just-released study by The Council for Research Excellence about video media usage. According to the Press Release, here’s how the study worked:

“Using handheld smart keyboards equipped with a custom media collector program developed by Ball State [University], the observers recorded - in 10-second increments - [350 subjects'] exposure to visual content presented on any of four categories of screens: traditional television (including live TV as well as DVD/VCR and DVR playback); computer (including Web use, e-mail, instant messaging and stored or streaming video); mobile devices such as a Blackberry or iPhone (including Web use, text messaging and mobile video); and “all other screens” (including display screens in out-of-home environments, in-cinema movies and other messaging and even GPS navigation units). All told, the [Video Consumer Mapping] study generated data covering more than three-quarters of a million minutes or a total of 952 observed days.  This is the largest and most extensive observational study of media usage ever conducted.”

Subjects were grouped by age: 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, and 65+.

The takeaways:

• We’re exposed to 72 minutes of ads per day.

• We look at content on screens (TV, PC, smartphone, etc.) for 8.5 hours a day.

• This is consistent across age groups, except for geezers like me (45-54) who watch an extra hour per day. (Do I? Nah, can’t be possible. Or maybe I’m wrong — the Briefing Document says that people “substantially” under-report their TV time.)

• TV is still king — despite all the doomsayers – with 98% of the eyeball time.

Disclosure: The report was funded by Nielsen.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on March 27, 2009 (boomark / email).