It has all the makings of a new reality show: J.Q. Public lumbers out of bed and from the time he wakes up until the time he says good night is followed by researchers tracking
his every media interaction. It's what researchers from Ball State University's Center for Media Design did recently in an effort to more accurately gauge daily American media
consumption. Their conclusion: People spend more than double the time with the media than they think do -- not necessarily a bad thing for PR execs who often look to the media
food chain to get their messages out - and tend to underreport how much time they spend with the media. The study defined media to include things like reading newspapers,
magazines or books; watching TV, video tapes or DVDs; listening to the radio, CDs, cassettes or MP3 Players, surfing the Web; sending and receiving e-mail or talking on the
telephone or cell phone. The survey, published in The International Digital Media & Arts Association Journal, also found that:
- Total time spent with media by the average person each day: 11.7 hours
- Most media-active person spends more than 17 hours with the media
- Least media-active person spends 5.25 hours a day with the media
- Personal diary accounts show people recording 57 minutes a day spent with the Internet; researchers observing those same people, however, peg the number at 78 minutes