Internet Turning Into a Boob Tube of Sorts, Survey Says

Way back in the day (a whole four years ago) the Internet was primarily a tool of communication -- e-mail, message boards, instant messaging. Then somewhere along the way things began to change. Content became king.
A study conducted by Nielsen/NetRatings over the past four years has shown that almost half our Internet lives are now spent devouring content (like this blog). Since 2003, the percent of our online time that we spend watching videos, reading articles, or listening to music and podcasts has climbed from 34 percent to 47 percent. Meanwhile communications activities such as e-mail are on a steady decline, dropping to only 33 percent of our time (down from 46 in 2003).
The other activities that made up the majority of peoples time online were searching (five percent) and commerce (15 percent).
Is the Internet going the way of TV --- that is, are we increasingly just sitting back and watching our computer monitors rather than using them to keep in touch with others? This survey seems to point in that direction. What do you think?
From Reuters
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Comments
2
Subscribe to commentsDonAug 14th 2007 10:17PM
Nielson ratings are not a slide rule to go by because they don't rate enough people.
luckstayAug 15th 2007 1:18AM
I also agree with your comment. Nielson's rating system needs an update, so they can have a more accurate statistic results. I find this new generation provides the information in so many ways, and Nielson doesn't take advantage of that as they are still doing things the old way, most young adults don't know or have even heard of Nielson... There is so many other new ways to attract people to participate in polls so I feel Nielson is outdated.