Sleep, Work, Watch

By Jill Hamburg Coplan

The average American (age 12 and up) with Internet access spends more than 6 hours a day watching movies, shows, news, and sports—or playing games—on screens of one sort or another. That’s up from 4.6 hours in 1996, says Solutions Research Group, which predicts a rise to 8 hours a day in 2013. The group, which studied the viewing diaries of 1,014 people, found that on average TV accounts for 4 of the current 6 viewing hours. The other 2 hours involve the Web, DVDs, gaming consoles, and mobile devices. (The ratio is roughly reversed for the 12-to-24-year-old set.) By 2013, the group forecasts, Americans will spend an average three hours daily viewing or playing with PCs and mobile devices. “Wherever you go,” says Solutions Research President Kaan Yigit, “you’ll be bathing in video content.”