The report "It's a Family Affair," released by Yahoo! and the ad agency OMD, based on a worldwide poll of over 4,500 Web users, found that around the world the 24-hour day is obsolete.
When asked to break down the average time they spent daily on various activities — and then adding that time up — the citizens of the world live 43-hour days.
They think they spent over 16 hours a day with media and technology. Obviously, they don't. But there is a lot of multi-tasking going on, and involvement with media and technology is unquestionably high.
The study found that the average US family owns 12 tech devices, including three TVs, two PCs, and seven other gadgets such as consoles, MP3 players and mobile phones. They use these devices to "get stuff done," to stay in touch with one another and for entertainment.
US family members report spending an average of 2.5 hours a day watching TV, one hour using instant messenger, 1.2 hours e-mailing and 3.6 hours online every day.
Today, most of these consumer electronics (CE) rely on physical media and broadcast delivery of content — such as music CDs and network television programming — but that may be about to change.
According to a new report from ABI Research, "Wi-Fi in Consumer Electronics," the market is shifting. Wi-Fi networks are becoming a key component in the delivery and redistribution of entertainment content to the home — to CE hardware.
ABI predicts that the total number of Wi-Fi-enabled CE devices shipped per year will grow from 40 million in 2006 to nearly 250 million in 2011.
"While the consumer Wi-Fi market has previously consisted largely of routers, gateways and adapters," said Michael Wolf of ABI, "we believe that as the market evolves towards digital distribution, its growth will be fueled by the inclusion of embedded Wi-Fi in consumer electronics."
The market today is led by portable gaming consoles, as both Nintendo and Sony have equipped their latest generation devices with Wi-Fi for multiplayer and online gaming. The new Zune from Microsoft signals the beginning of a large-scale movement toward embedded Wi-Fi in portable media players, while camera vendors such as Nikon, Kodak and Canon have all embraced Wi-Fi in their products.