Just in case you aren’t sure that the way people interact with media is changing, I thought I’d find data to finally convince you.  I saw a useful little article the other day that gives some insights into the way people are engaging with different forms of media. As Lisa E. Phillips points out,” there are only so many hours per day that consumers can spend watching TV, reading newspapers and surfing the internet”, but as we all would expect, the time devoted to different kinds of media is changing.

eMarketer recently analysed data obtained  from dozens of research firms and came up with a series of estimates as to how much time consumers spent with all major media from 2008 to 2010.

The average time spent on all major media combined increased from about 10.6 hours in 2008 to 11 hours in 2010. TV and video (not including online video) took up the lion’s share of all media time, about 40% each year. Not surprisingly, the internet’s share of media time increased over the same period, from 21.5% to 23.5%, as did mobile’s share, from 5% to 7.5%. The fraction of time spent with magazines and newspapers stayed between 10% and 7.5%, while time spent on all other media, including radio, video games and films shown in cinemas declined.

What does this tell us? Now we know for sure that people are engaging more with media via the internet and their mobiles than ever before and it can’t be long before time spent with the traditional newspaper is on the wane as more and more papers are published online. It also tells us that advertising in cinemas might not be the wisest move, unless associated with a blockbuster! A  final thought – maybe cinemas and theatres should boost their audiences by marketing via social media?