How Much Information discusses both the production and the use of information. The most interesting things to me were book and internet use. But I will mention some others.
First, the average US household in 1992 spent 100 hours per year reading books. If the average household consists of four people, that means that the average American read 25 hours a year. Okay. I’m obviously not average. Even when I’m not reading much I read 25 hours a month easy. When I am reading, I read well over 25 hours a week. So do I skew so far they throw me out? Or do I skew in such a way that most people only read an hour or two a year? I don’t know. I’m thinking they’d throw me out. In 2000 the average household only spent 24 hours a year reading. You know, my kids read more than 24 hours a month. So I guess we all mess it up.
Second, TV watching. The average household spent 1510 hours a year watching TV in 1992 and 1571 hours watching it in 2000. That’s a little less than 400 hours per person. Which works out to be about an hour a day. Okay, maybe my family skews here too. I watch about an hour and a half a week. My boys only have 4 hours a week that they can watch. So we’re definitely below the average in TV watching.
Third, internet use. In 1992 the average household used the internet 2 hours a year. Okay. In 1992 even my one year old son used the internet more than that. My husband used the internet probably 2 hours a day in 1992. So he’d definitely skew the whole set there. In 2000 Americans used about 43 hours per year. Now, at that rate of growth, we should be looking at about 63 hours per year for the American household today. Well, we use 63 hours a week on the internet at our house. We have an airport and four laptops. Plus two table top computers. There are four of us, but still. I’d say we easily push the average of the year by a minimum of 50x. I mean, my family considers me a computer-phobe and totally geek-less, but I use the internet at least 10 hours a week. Often more. And my boys use it more than I do by a huge magnitude. I’d say maybe 50 hours a week each. So really, we’d use double the yearly amount for the average household each week.
I guess all I can say about this info and usage is that my family doesn’t match it.