A new report by eMarketer reveals that by the end of 2013, American adults will spend more time using digital media than watching TV on a daily basis.
While time spent watching TV has largely stayed the same (it dropped slightly from 4 hrs 38 min in 2012, to 4 hrs and 31 min this year), time spent on digital media continues to rise at an impressive rate. In the US, adults now average 5 hrs and 9 min daily with digital media; this is up from 4 hrs 31 min in 2012, and 3 hrs and 50 min in 2011. Overall, digital media consumption is up 15.8%.
Time spent consuming media (in general) is on the rise, but numbers for radio and print are declining, while digital and TV are holding strong or growing (AdAge).
What’s driving the growth in digital media consumption? US adults are increasingly turning to their mobile devices; they now spend an average of 2 hours and 21 minutes per day on their mobile — for activities other than phone calls (“nonvoice mobile activities”). This number is up 46 minutes since last year.
Time spent on mobile now represents a little more than half of TV’s share of total media time, and more than half of digital media time as a whole. While the bulk of mobile time is spent on smartphones (1 hour and 7 minutes per day), tablets are not far behind.
Note: the numbers account for time spent with every unique medium, regardless of the overlap in consumption (so a user who spends one hour watching TV while also logged into Facebook will count as spending one hour on each type of media).
Are you surprised by these numbers?
