According to a new report from the University of California, San Diego, U.S. consumers' insatiable appetite for information continues to show no signs of slowing down. In 2008 alone, American consumers absorbed 3.6 zettabytes of information. On any given day, the report calculates that an average American consumes 34 gigabytes of content and about 100,000 words of information.
In essence, consumers view and hear 100,000 words though a number of sources, including television, radio, the Internet, text messages and video games. Another contributor to our information appetite comes from entertainment. Not surprisingly, the dominant form of entertainment comes from viewing on average four and a half hours of TV content and interacting with a computer. There's also the multitasking phenomenon where consumers will simultaneously check e-mail while talking on the phone, for example.
For more:
- see the University of California, SD study here
- New York Times also has this article