Study finds Americans consume 34 gigabytes of information per day
By Donald Melanson 
posted December 9th 2009 7:49PM
posted December 9th 2009 7:49PM
Well, it's a good thing life comes with an unlimited data plan, as a recent study conducted by the University of California, San Diego has found that Americans consume plenty of gigabytes in the average day. Thirty-four gigabytes, to be specific, which translates to a grand total of of 3.6 zettabytes of information consumed by American households in 2008 (or 3.6 billion trillion bytes). Of course, that doesn't just consist of gigabytes "consumed" the traditional way, but instead encompasses everything from TV (still the leader by a wide margin) to phone calls to newspapers. In terms of time, the study found that Americans spent about 11.8 hours a day consuming information in one way or another, the majority of which was spent staring at a screen of some sort -- and, yes, they did take HD content into account, but its growth apparently hasn't yet resulted in a huge jump in data consumption.
Thats actually very interesting.
@Jasenjr
Really? Why? Central tendency doesn't do justice when reporting some statistics. Example: If Bill Gates walked into a cafe in Seattle, then the average customer in that place would be a billionaire. Is that an accurate picture of the cafe's patrons? No, no it's not.
This study is worthless. It requires much more sophisticated data analysis than just calculating means. Moreover, how they chose to operationalize information ("as data that is delivered for use by a person") leaves much to be desired. Since when do phone calls, print, and tv accurately transfer into data? Crossing these very different mediums tells us nothing.
This study is rudimentary at best. At most, it tells us how the average American spends their time... and again, using means isn't the most robust way to report that data.
I'm embarrassed to see a University study produce such poor results...
@(Unverified)
And the point you bring is in itself interesting. It all depends upon the way things are presented, the sample, the time, the infinite amount of variables. No, this isn't accurate for everyone, and everything depends. That's why these things are "averages" and have "margins of error."
@(Unverified) I think phone calls and print probably transfer quite easily, I'm sure it would be possible to measure the data rate or a call, and surely text would be around about 1 byte/letter.
@Jasenjr
This is actually one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of.
@(Unverified) No variance is reported. Sample sizes (not rates) are grossly disproportioned and central tendency doesn't account for weighted measures.
The points you bring up are in fact the problems that ultimately make this report worthless. Thanks for agreeing with me, even though you don't seem to want to be in that position.
Either the IRS or cable companies are going to try to find a way to make us pay for this.
@DTJ
for a second I thought I blacked out again and wrote that.
@DTJ : They'll impose bandwidth caps before we know it. We won't be able to watch news live because some can't get the channels due to throttling. lol
@DTJ
Then when the time comes, don't upgrade to a cyberbrain.
@Jasenjr I agree... Stupid data stuff is pretty cool.
in 3 years PC will be number 1
@operation northwoods
Right, when all our download speed are at 1gb/s.
@operation northwoods No, no it won't. It will still be TV. When now twenty-somethings and under are the majority, like in 10-20 years, then maybe. Not in three though.
@Special Agent Steve until the US decides to improve there infrastructure to match the rest of the developed countries we will not be seeing those speeds anytime soon. To think they are still offering dial-up I have not seen that advertised where I am at in over 5 years now.
Porn
The data looks like it came straight from graphjam.com
Good thing we aren't like AT&T's network
It's a shame they didn't break down computer. It would have been interesting to see how much is porn.
i would be curious to see how much bandwidth the average office worker uses - internally and externally, and the breakdown of both. internally, exchange or mail server gets pounded with 100mb powerpoint files that get sent and saved as attachments. externally, the tubes get clogged (/exaggeration) by farmville and facebook all day
wow movies and music are that small? as impossible as it is, i would love to see charts for individuals and compare percentages.
@kojo87 I don't get how they count movies, seeing it almost always seen on a computer or TV screen.
@(Unverified) thats just it. they must be counting movies seen in the theater. i know most of the movies i watch are at home.
@kojo87
Yeah - I think its only movies in theater and on DVD.
Televised and downloaded films fit into the other categories - if they were included it would probably be a lot more.
Once blu-ray gets more popular I bet that stat would rise.
Why would Bluray make it rise? Do you think bluray will make people change their behaviour and start watching more.
I would think it would stay the same with bluray harvesting from the DVD distribution channel
This is stupid, why would you waste time making a number on how many gigabytes a human consumes a day? What's the point?
@almostkorean
Information is power.
@almostkorean
What the hell are you doing on Engadget?
I want this to make sense... I really do.
How is print considered data? How many bytes of information are in a newspaper?
@(Unverified) do you know newspapers are printed from files?
@(Unverified) a byte is essentially 1 letter of text. Obviously there are graphics in newspapers as well as some data for formatting, but for pure test 1 Byte per character is good measurement.
I want to know what math they are using. They have 1.7GB of phone conversations in there. I'd believe super high rates of TV consumption, as HDTV can be 10GB/hour, BUT you can't physically consumer 1.7GB of phone converstaions. AT&T uses a max of 8kbit/s for GSM conversations each way, so figure 16kbps total, which yields 1.3GB assuming that you talk TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY. Realistically, a normal person would probably consumer no more than 100MB of phone conversations on a heavy talking day.
@(Unverified)
It's counting words, not bytes.
@(Unverified)
If you look at the compressed bytes pie chart in the linked study, computer games are about 1/2, all TV is about 1/3, and the rest totals about 1/6, with phone at only 0.04%
@thethirdmoose: If you count words, it would be like 10KB for an entire day of talking. It just makes no sense.
@(Unverified)
I believe it is referring to all material accessed by a phone.
So, if you have an smart-phone, it would include all the data for mail, web, and maps, as well as photos, music and movies accessed on the phone. That adds up quick.
@M C
Smart phones have nearly nothing to do with useage of 1.7GB/day. Most carriers "unlimited plans" are capped at 5GB/month. Even if a user maxes their 5GB/month, so they do are limited to an maximum average of 0.16GB/day based on the usage of every byte of the 5GB/month cap. That leaves over 1.5GB/day unaccounted for. Dont forget this is for the average american....who may or may not have a data plan for their phone.
IMO many of the values look inflated, unless the bitrate of radio is huge, I find it hard to believe the average american consumes 3.6gigs of radio a day.
@Hilltop Yup. Even I as a power user only uses maybe 10MB/day, on some days I probably only use a few KB, even if you include everything on my phone.
We have a pie chart to tell us Americans love to consume?
@(Unverified)
Yes, considering consumption is necessary to life. Obviously, if you've never consumed you must be a day old, and starving. Here, have a cookie!
Good thing our minds aren't running on Comcast or ATT wireless
i just pooped 34 gigabytes, thats nothing
@greggo
On a good day i can poop 160gigabytes, Compressed
Gigabytes is a pretty meaningless measure of information. Does a 50gb blu ray really contain 50 times as much information as the 1gb divx version of the same film? If I read a 5 page article and it's only 20kb, does that make it relatively worthless?
@demand depends on what you're trying to look at. this shows how much information people got movin' over the tubes. on the flip side of your argument, is streaming a 10 minute 1080p video over the internet less significant than that 50 page article?
@demand:
In a way, yes. The reason the divx is 1gb is due to compression. Compression = less data, ie throwing out redundant data. Take an uncompressed version and throw it on that 50gb disc and you've got more information.
@Jordan If this were actually scientific, you'd be correct. But here, they're comparing a giant slice of radio (let's be generous and say 2 hours) against a 1.5 hour movie (which is incredibly teeny). The whole pie chart is comparing Apples to Oranges to BS.
AMERICA!!!!! F@&K Yeah!!!
34 gigs?
We really cant help the bandwidth used for digital cable/sat TV, So I think that may skew it a bit to the high side.