SHOCKING REVELATION: Time Spent Online Flattens; Time Spent on TV Increases.

NEWS ALERT

Ad Age reported today the results of a Forrester survey revealing that time spent online has leveled off at an average of 12 hours per week.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Nielsen Media Research reported last November the average American watches 142 hours of TV in a month. Last season the typical home had a television on for eight hours and 18 minutes each day. That's up an hour per day from just 10 years ago.

And the older you are, the more TV you watch. Nielsen said Americans aged 65 and up watch more than 196 hours per month.

Back at Ad Age...

Forrester contends that as consumers become more accustomed to the Internet, they also become more efficient.

I guess that makes sense, but then how do you explain the seemingly endless increases in TV viewing? Certainly we have all become accustomed to the TV enough to become more efficient with our utilization. Right?

Wrong. Americans love their TV. All-in-all, Internet use has flattened out, newspaper and magazine reading has flattened out, even Major League Baseball attendance has flattened out (actually it has dropped).

Meanwhile, somewhere in my head...

I am reminded of a Terrence Mann monologue from the popular movie Screen of Dreams:

People will watch Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been television. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But television has marked the time. This set, this screen: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will watch Ray. People will most definitely watch.