The media consumption tipping point has arrived: Millennials lead charge from TVs to smartphones
This year has witnessed a "tipping" point in media consumption, in which digital has overtaken traditional forms, a new report has found.
IPA Touchpoints suggested we are becoming “superhuman information absorbers”, with half of our waking hours now spent consuming media or online information. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) surveyed more than 5,000 people over the age of 15 for the study.
They found we are spending more than seven hours a day on average consuming media and online information, up two per cent on 2015 and nine per cent on 2005.
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Some four hours and 16 minutes are spent sucking up digital content, whether for work, browsing, shopping, banking or emailing, which is more than double 2005’s two hours.
The digital tipping point – meaning we are now spending more time with digital than traditional media – is being led by millennials, the IPA said.
IPA director general Paul Bainsfair said: “TouchPoints 2016 reveals a clear break with the past, with millennials defining new patterns of media consumption that will shape the media, marketing and technology industries in the decades to come.”
The IPA found 93 per cent of those surveyed used the internet regularly, compared with 56 per cent in 2005.
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Some 93 per cent of millennials use social media each week, compared with 71 per cent of all adults. And 82 per cent of millennials use Facebook weekly, versus 59 per cent of adults.
The IPA found that while 54 per cent of adults consume their news in newspapers, this figure reduces to 17 per cent among millennials.
Millennials get 30 per cent of their news from BBC News Online and 25 per cent from other digital newsbrand platforms. Some four per cent is consumed through the Buzzfeed.