Internet users watch less television than individuals without web access. This according to a group of political scientists from the aptly-named Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society at Stanford University. They report that online users watch TV for 1 hour and 42 minutes a day compared with two hours for the ever-shrinking group of unwired Americans.
No big surprises here.
However, the study also suggests that television isn’t the only thing being cannibalized by online usage. An hour spent online also reduces face-to-face time socializing with family by a whopping 23.5 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes. I became tired and lonely just reading the findings online.
For a condensed version of the SIQSS study, read the New York Times article on the topic.
Signing off for now...don’t want to cut into my beauty sleep.
Micah, you have described what online marketing researchers have coined "telewebbing." The act of watching television while surfing the web.
Studies show that when people use their computers and watch TV, the TV -- an inherently passive medium -- fades into the background.
Most of the research is old -- dating back to 2000 -- but here's a good article from 2002 on the topic.
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Not quite, methinks
Last night, I sprawled on the sofa in my living room with my laptop on, reading email and blogs, while watching TV and chatting with my wife intermittently about the pictures of the tsunami we were seeing as well as other random things. Was I watching TV, surfing the web or spending face-to-face time with family?
The Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society has a problem. Its study tool doesn't allow respondents to choose "multi-tasking" as an option in their self-reporting.
So, while the drop in TV watching is not surprising (and certainly rings true to my own experience), I'd like more textured observation of people's Internet use before I accepted IQSS's claim that it reduces family face-to-face socializing by such a large degree.