The amount of information consumed by Americans in 2008 totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, according to a report by the University of California at San Diego, "How Much Information?
2009 Report on American Consumers." For an average person on an ordinary day, this represents 34 gigabytes of data and 100,500 words. Americans are now exposed to 11.8 hours of information each day --
not counting the workplace.
Americans spent 16% of their information hours browsing the Internet, which is second only to television's 41%, according to the UCSD study. With the
increase in use of email, instant messaging and social networking sites, the Internet now dominates two-way communications, accounting for more than 79%of those bytes every day.
Despite the rapid growth of new media, such as YouTube videos, games on smartphones or text messages, their consumption is still outpaced by traditional media.
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