Our Changing Media Habits: Surfing the Web vs Watching TV

A recent study found that college students are more likely to spend time on the Net than traditional media like TV and radio. Furthermore, these students are likely to be multi-tasking (i.e. surfing the Net) while watching TV or listening to the radio.

This definately mimics the changes that are happening in our house. We rarely watch TV without a Net-connected laptop handy. Sometimes it's a multi-tasking situation - I'll be reading email and catching up on Blogs while watching a show with my family. But even more often, I'll find that we want to lookup background info on whatever we're watching, to enrich the experience. For example, this weekend for Family Movie Night (our Sunday evening ritual) we watched The Secret Garden, an exquisite and moving version of the beloved children's book. As the opening credits were rolling, Gabe asked me "Who were the Warner Brothers?" -- so I looked them up on Wikipedia, and read a few excerpts from the article to my family while we were waiting for the movie to start. During the movie, I checked my email occasionally, and then I read reviews of the movie on Amazon and RottonTomatoes during the closing credits. While reading reviews, I stumbled upon a prolific reviewer named MovieMom who's reviewed a lot of family films -- and based on her recommendations, made some notes on what to rent for our next Family Movie Night.

So that's how Net-surfing enriches the TV viewing experience in our house. Here's some stats from the college study.

The study found that about 34 percent of college students recently reported spending more than 10 hours a week online, while only around 19 percent say they devote at least the same amount of time to watching television or listening to the radio. For the report, Burst last month surveyed 800 college students between the ages of 18 and 24.

The findings confirm other recent reports concluding that college students are heavy online users. For instance, earlier this month Alloy Media   Marketing reported that students spend 3.5 hours a day e-mailing, instant messaging and Web surfing, and 6.5 hours a week on social networking sites...

...many college students who watch TV or listen to the radio are multi-tasking at the time. Around 64 percent of respondents report using the computer when viewing TV, while around 60 percent use a computer while the radio is on.

In the same study, Burst also examined what factors persuade students to change brands. Better price was the single most important consideration, cited by almost 61 percent of respondents. Friends' recommendations also were influential, with almost 49 percent of respondents saying such recommendations influenced decisions to change brands.