MY MOBILE DATA PLAN verifies that I am viewing more photos and videos online than ever before. And I train clever students who produce even more multimedia for everyone to consume. Look at these numbers:
1 billion
In 2017, YouTube reported that people watched a billion hours on its services every day. One billion hours of YouTube streamed every day. On average, young Americans spend two hours a day watching videos online. My two school children in Ireland exceed that average viewing period.
70 million
About 70m Americans regularly listen to podcasts, according to Edison Media Research. People who listen weekly tend to spend five hours a week on them. My audio consumption habit includes podcasts, social audio, and audio books. My battery usage graphs say I'm using more than 12 hours a week listening to audio playback on my phone.
30 minutes
I like Instagram because it gives me easy swipe and see. Instagram Stories are a great success for the general public. More than 800m people use Instagram, for more than 30 minutes a day on average. I'm a below average user, spending more time on Flickr and Google Images.
$8 billion
According to Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times, "a tsunami of money is flowing into audio and video. Netflix unveiled a plan to spend $8bn on original content in one year. Apple plan to shell out $1bn".
$10
If you've read this far, you probably spend at least $10 a month for digital multimedia services. Most of my friends drop EUR 10 to Netflix and another EUR 10 to Spotify every month.
More on NYT Interactive: "Welcome to the Post-Text Future", February 9, 2018.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business in the Limerick Institute of Technology. Photo of Rachel Ray and Cornelius Barry, two creative media students with a passion for technology.]
