Americans Consume 100,000 Words, 34 Gigabytes Of Content A Day (STUDY)

From big portions to even bigger cars, Americans have repeatedly caught flack for how much we consume.

A new study shows we're gorging on information, too.

The report by the University of California, San Diego, titled "How Much Information?" explores American information consumption and communication, and offers up some incredible calculations of how much information we take in, and where we get it.

Some highlights from the study:

• Americans spend an average of 11.8 hours per day receiving information, which adds up to about 1.3 trillion hours of information consumption in a year.
• Americans consumed about 3.6 zettabytes (or 3,600 exabytes) of information in their homes in 2008. To put that in perspective, one exabyte is equal to about all of the hard drives in the entire state of Minnesota, which has a population of 5.1 million.
• Forty-one percent of Americans' information consumption time is spent watch TV, although TV accounts for less than 35 percent of the information bytes consumed.
• Fifty-five percent of information bytes consumed in the home come from computer and video games. The study explains that this share of our 3.6 zettabytes is so big in part because modern game consoles and PCs create huge streams of graphics.
• The researchers calculated that we consumed, on average, 10, 845 trillion words in 2008, or about 100,000 words per American, per day. (As the New York Times points out, Tolstoy's "War and Peace", for comparison, is 460,000 words long).

Although technology has made us every more connected -- we can now get information virtually everywhere, on our phones, computers, TVs, in our cars, in elevators, and more -- the bytes of information we consume have grown at 5.4 percent annually, which is far less than the growth rate of computer and information technology.

Here are some charts from the study "How Much Information?" that present a breakdown of the source of the information we consume.

Read more about the study and download a full copy of the report here.

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Comments

[starrianna]

04:27 PM on 01/21/2010

George W Bush, on the other hand, consumes:

* 5 words a day (get your feet off the couch!)
* 72-108 pretzels a day (before he chokes)
* naptimes at 11am, 2pm, 5pm, and nightynight at 830 (after Frasier)

[LMPE]

05:53 PM on 12/10/2009

However, if for a given person all the TV is Clusterfox, all the radio is Limbaugh, all the computer/Internet is WorldNetDaily, etc, that should count as information subtraction.

[DWGRadio]

10:02 PM on 01/21/2010

Yes. why doesn't the article point out that most of the content consumed is crap. Much like our diet.

[LightShadow62]

01:15 PM on 12/10/2009

It's too bad that with all the information that is available out there that people in general are still stupid.

[blastocyst]

09:25 AM on 12/10/2009

My noggin's become so ponderous, stuffed as it is with every nuance of our existence, that I can scarcely keep my head erect. Now it's off to see what Tiger's mistresses (alleged that is) are up to.

[TrnsNtnl]

10:24 PM on 12/09/2009

People still watch tv?

[jkpcguru]

12:59 AM on 12/10/2009

Hulu Much?

[jkpcguru]

01:06 AM on 12/10/2009

You need to get on a high latency diet. Lag is good for you!

[superstition]

10:03 PM on 12/09/2009

"Pizza delivery." "Thank you... Please come in."

[southernfried]

09:35 PM on 12/09/2009

like who cares?

[TinRoofRusted]

09:11 PM on 12/09/2009

TMI.

[QueenMaeve]

08:57 PM on 12/09/2009

The real question should be, how much accurate, quality information do we consume? I'm afraid we'll fall abysmally short in that department.

[noreast77]

09:13 PM on 12/09/2009

It's on the chart- it is just so small you cannot see it...

[QueenMaeve]

02:34 AM on 12/10/2009

Ooooooooh, I see it now! It's .000000003%.

[spottery2k]

06:39 PM on 12/09/2009

The interesting thing about this for me is that the Internet is not mentioned. Yes, it reads "computer", but virtually all of those things can be done via the Internet. My point is that I'm 45 yrs old. I remember when none of these things were on the Internet. Internet was not even a word in popular culture, and the difference is that Mass Media has always been a centralized and controlled information medium, one-way between broadcaster and public. The Internet is a decentralized and interactive medium, two-way, multi-way, information sharing medium.

[HekmabaJuzimakz]

08:23 PM on 12/09/2009

No, the Internet is like a net that is, like, inside. Inter. Get it?
Quality of information is more important than quantity.

[noreast77]

09:16 PM on 12/09/2009

"nets" are for catching things... on earth how many man hours are spent on the internet vs 20 years ago? From zero hours to millions/ maybe billions. Those are hours not spent doing the many things that should be done. You are trapped in the net...

[2farnorth]

06:34 PM on 12/09/2009

Technically we receive information twenty four hours day, three hundred and sixty five days a year.

[HekmabaJuzimakz]

08:24 PM on 12/09/2009

And it's all BS, propaganda, liesAndInnuendo, pornAnd indecentMaterials, pornAndporn.
Oh, andPorn.

[virtuagav]

06:31 PM on 12/09/2009

This is really no surprise, throughout history, all available technology of its era has induced mass interest and a desire to utilise whats 'new' at the time. If a service or product is offered, then generally it will be used. There is no use offering a global technical revelation, marketing it, making it readily accessible and affordable and then criticising its everyday use. Just as well no one decided against the sliced loaf isn't it.

http://www.virtuasolutions.co.uk

[Jorge Montijo]

06:30 PM on 12/09/2009

Perhaps this is how we begin to overcome information asymmetry.

[HekmabaJuzimakz]

08:25 PM on 12/09/2009

Grabbing my computer and raising it above my head to throw it....that's how I overcome information asymmetry.

[blacksmithn]

05:16 PM on 12/09/2009

Oh, great. How long before we hear that Americans are suffering from an epidemic of "information obesity?"

[Hammerlock]

05:19 PM on 12/09/2009

I'm not fat; I'm big-bandwidthed!

[HekmabaJuzimakz]

08:25 PM on 12/09/2009

LOL!

[Pupadup4oBama]

09:36 PM on 12/09/2009

LOLOLOL!!!

[emily00011]

05:32 PM on 12/09/2009

what do you think twitter is?

[HekmabaJuzimakz]

08:26 PM on 12/09/2009

A terabyte forTwits.

[listeningpost]

10:12 PM on 12/09/2009

Americans are already known for their fat heads.

[RastaMandingo]

04:53 PM on 12/09/2009

And hopefully that information is written well and proof read:
"Forty-one percent of Americans' information consumption time is spent watch TV"
"Although technology has made us every more connected"
Information is only useful if it is correct and communicated in a manner that is intelligible to the reader (consumer). I fear in this time of "e" everything, i.e. blogs, online news, texting, etc., that we have grown lax in our understanding and proper use of the English language.
Please proofread!

[Pupadup4oBama]

09:31 PM on 12/09/2009

You are absolutely correct.

[rf-hawaii]

11:02 AM on 12/10/2009

Republicans tend to achieve their goals through tons of incorrect information.