Our Time Spent With Media Declined in 2006

The average American spent only 3,530 hours on news, information, and entertainment in 2006, representing the first such decline in recent memory (down 0.5 percent), according to a recent report from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity firm. VSS's James Rutherford attributed the decline to the increased "efficiency" of digital media:

"We all knew that there was only 24 hours in the day, and even withmultitasking there would be a point where people maxed out. It hasjust come a little faster than we thought because of the efficiency ofdigital media."

The report also says that usage of content that's uniqueto online and mobile platforms is the fastest-growing segment of the media world.

The article points to the decline as a reason for advertisers to be worried, but we still spent an average of 9.7 hours per day on various types of media, so I don't think they should be too worried. Plus, the study didn't take media usage at work into account.

(via mediabistro; cartoon from this modern world)