Young People Spend More Time Online Than Watching TV
The web is the most popular medium among teenagers and young adults in the US, according to a recent study commissioned by Yahoo! and Carat North America.
By comparison, people in this age group, dubbed “Millennials” spend an average of just 13.6 hours in front of the TV and 12 hours listening to the radio.
The report determined that the internet is particularly popular because of the “control” it affords the user. In particular, young people appreciate the options available to them on the web and enjoy personalising and managing their online experience.
Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer of Yahoo! commented: “The findings of our joint study confirm that the media landscape is shifting. Our industry needs to evaluate and change our communications approach to successfully reach this key target market. This generation is a revolutionary consumer group, actively in control and entrenched in their media experience, and their patterns will influence the future of media spending.”
One of the benefits of the internet is that it can be used simultaneously with other media (see Simultaneous Media Usage Becoming The Norm). The Yahoo!/Carat study found that teens and young adults regularly engaged in other media activities while online. Some 68% listen to CDs or MP3s while 50% watch TV, 45% listen to the radio and 21% read. Only 5% of respondents said they did nothing else while accessing the web.
