The digital state of the nation
Each August, Ofcom publishes its “Communications Market Report”- a comprehensive and accessible examination of the UK’s TV, radio, broadband, telecoms and mobile industries – and receives considerable publicity for it. This is partly because it is genuinely fascinating, partly because the media loves to comment on the media, and partly because the media has less news in the summer.
The 2010 report – the seventh in the series – is published today and contains interesting insights into our use of media. Ofcom has highlighted some of the key findings in its media release.
The headline news is that consumers are spending almost half (45 per cent) of their waking hours watching TV, using their mobiles and other communications devices.
They are now sending four times as many texts per day than in 2004, spending almost a quarter of their time on the internet on social networking sites and spending 3 hours and 45 minutes per day watching TV.
They are also using several types of media at the same time – with the average person cramming 8 hours 48 minutes of media into just over seven hours during the average day.