Source: Statista

The time people spend with print newspapers and magazines has dwindled, with media attention being dominated by the internet in 2019. That trend will only increase over the next two years, according to Zenith Media Consumption Report. 

Consumers have limited time and attention, pushing print to the side as they move onto digital channels. The daily time each consumer worldwide will spend on the internet this year is forecasted to hit 170 minutes daily, roughly 3 hours a day. By 2021, consumers are estimated to spend 192 minutes per day on the internet. Specifically, Zenith found that this is being driven by consumers increasing the time they spend on their internet-connected mobile devices. Consumers worldwide will increase the time they spend with mobile internet to 800 hours this year. 

By comparison, daily time print newspaper is projected to shrink to 9 minutes, while print magazine time is estimated to stand at around 4 minutes per day in 2021. A decade beforehand, daily time worldwide with print newspaper stood at just over 20 minutes, while magazine time was around 10 minutes a day.

Source: Statista

It’s no secret that people spend a lot of time with their smartphones and other electronic gadgets these days. How much time that actually is, is astonishing nonetheless: according to Nielsen’s latest Total Audience Report, Americans aged 18 and older spend roughly ten and a half hours a day watching TV, listening to the radio or using their smartphones and other electronic devices.

Considering that most people are awake 16 to 18 hours a day, 11 hours of electronic media usage seems like a lot, but, to be fair, much of that probably happens while doing other things at the same time. It’s a good thing people were given the ability to multitask; otherwise we wouldn’t get a whole lot done these days.