How Americans Spend Their Time
December 18, 2010
Slurp, slurp. ”
That is the sound of “real journalists” gobbling the latest Forrester confection. I read “Forrester: Americans Spend Equal time Online and Watching TV.” Great headline, but I am not sure I know what “time” means. Also, the pairing of online and watching TV is ambiguous.
I get the point. Web activity is now as popular as watching the boob tube. Great.
But what happens to the data if a person watches TV when online?
I think I know what the mid tier outfit is trying to accomplish: make sales for its consulting business. The “data” are the bait for the canny Forrester fishermen and fisherwomen.
Here’s the main idea. People are spending as much time watching TV as the people are fiddling with their computers, which I think means devices that are computers just hauled around or tucked in a pocket.
Several observations:
- What’s the sample size? What was the sampling method? Is the n=xxx such a big deal? Omit that from the stats homework in the lousy liberal college I attended as a dull normal and the prof awarded an automatic F. Guess that doesn’t apply to mid tier consulting outfits.
- Online usage is growing. Okay, great to know since devices have been proliferating for several years. It makes sense that if there are more devices, usage would go up.
- TV sucks. Well, the write up did not document that, but the TV crowd, like the newspaper and other publishers, are in a tizzy as people use their laptops and gizmos like the Apple TV to get the programming each user wants. With control, TV sucks less. If you want only shows you love, TV does not suck at all.
- The features used by those online mirror the same Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville “average” that his travels in America documented. The only difference is that the stuff that pleases is pretty well know; for example, email, buying stuff, and socializing.
What’s not in the write up may be in the “real” study available from Forrester? Facebook. My hunch is that the demographics of a statistically-valid sample rigorously surveyed would reveal some nuances not in the article and maybe in the “real” study. Here’s a list:
- In each demographic, which activity is growing more rapidly, which is decreasing more rapidly?
- In the demographic with the heaviest TV usage, what’s the group doing? Using the TV as background, a way to feel loved, or as a primary activity?
- In the demographic with the heaviest online usage, what amount of time is spent on Facebook versus any other social system.
- Across the sample, what is the lean back versus lean forward behavior? How many in each sector use one mode as a primary and the other mode as a secondary?
- Across demographics, who does the most buying? Under what conditions?
Our work in this field suggests some surprising behavioral shifts. The multitasking characteristic is covered in a Forrester blog post. Presumably that activity is documented rigorously in the “real” report.
But what about that sample? What confidence should I have in the oh-so-precise data? Without data about the mechanics of the study, not much I fear.
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2010
Freebie unlike the full reports from mid tier consulting firms
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