December 9, 2009

How Much Information?: 2009 Report on American Consumers

This report, from the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego, by Roger E. Bohn and James E. Short, reports on consumers in the United States in 2008. Where 2008 data was not available, it was extrapolated from earlier years. In other words, how much information was consumed by individuals in the United States in 2008? The statistics include information consumed in the home as well as outside the home for non-work-related reasons, including going to the movies, listening to the radio in the car, or talking on a cell phone. The report looks at all three measures of information consumption ? hours, words, and bytes ? and pays most attention to bytes, given the prevalence of digital media.