Multitasking when it comes to media consumption is on the rise at home according to Nielsen:
With respect to TV and Internet usage, we found that a fair number of people are doing both simultaneously, though in relatively small increments per day – an average of ten minutes per day per person. In our multitasking culture, watching TV while checking e-mail or surfing the Internet has become more and more common: more than half of our panelists had some simultaneous activity. Among that group, 3.7% of the time they were watching television they were also on the Internet and 31.6% of the time they were online they were also watching television. What was rather unexpected was that this behavior was not limited to any one age demographic: a teen was as likely to be engaged in simultaneous usage as was someone 54 years old. And the amount of time they were doing this was comparable.
| Who Uses the TV and Internet Simultaneously?May 2009 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P2+ | K2-11 | T12-17 | A18-24 | A25-34 | A35-44 | A45-54 | A55-64 | A65+ | |
| Simultaneous Users Per Month (000) | 139,817 | 11,458 | 13,486 | 11,759 | 22,421 | 23,681 | 23,588 | 19,055 | 14,368 |
| Simultaneous User % | 62.1 | 36.6 | 65.6 | 51.3 | 74.0 | 69.0 | 67.1 | 70.4 | 60.9 |
| Simultaneous HH:MM per Simultaneous User per Month | 5:15 | 2:13 | 4:08 | 3:58 | 5:32 | 5:53 | 5:40 | 7:00 | 5:11 |
| % of TV Minutes spent while also using the Internet | 3.6 | 2.1 | 4.3 | 3.6 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 2.5 |
| % of Internet Minutes spent while also watching TV | 30.4 | 32.8 | 25.3 | 23.7 | 27.5 | 30.9 | 30.7 | 36.8 | 31.3 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company | |||||||||
Well, I’m 56 years old and I spend significantly more than 10 minutes a day surfing the net while watching TV (much of that time is spent checking out the posts and comments on TVBTN).
Age 50 for another week – I almost always have the TV on ( or stereo ) while using PC. I noticed 35-54 or so did that raw numbers-wise the most. I don’t suppose anybody will dare say it reduces the impact of TV ads, though it clearly must. Madison Avenue is too big to be allowed to fail, or even be rationally criticized, since our consumerism supposedly depends on it. Forget that a lot of economists now are saying saving will be better for the long-term health of the economy than spending like drunken little narcissistic sailors amnd sailorettes …