A total of 6.9 zettabytes of media flows to individuals and households in a year — that’s 6.9 million million gigabytes, or 1021 bytes.
That’s according to “How Much Media? 2013 Report on American Consumers,” produced by the Institute for Communications Technology Management (CTM) at the USC Marshall School of Business and CTM Visiting Researcher James E. Short.
The report looks at media consumption by individuals in and out of the home, excluding the workplace, between 2008 and 2015, breaking “media” down into 30 categories of media type and delivery (e.g. television, social media, computer gaming).
Information reported in the study was canvassed from several hundred data sources, including media measurement firms such as Neilsen, Arbitron, ComScore, investor and analyst firms, government sources and foundation and research publications.
Growth From 2008-2012
U.S. media consumption totaled 3.5 zettabytes, an average of 33 gigabytes per consumer per day (One byte is one character of text. A gigabyte is 109 bytes. A zettabyte is 1021 bytes.). By 2012, total U.S. consumption had increased to 6.9 zettabytes, an average of 63 gigabytes per person per day.
Put another way, researcher Short said, if we printed 6.9 zettabytes of text in books, and stacked those books as tightly as possible across the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, the pile would be almost 14 feet high.
In 2008, Americans talked, viewed and listened to media for 1.3 trillion hours, an average of 11 hours per person per day. By 2012, total consumption had increased to 1.46 trillion hours, an average of 13.6 hours per person per day, representing a year over year growth rate of 5%.