Reporting on Nielsen

There were many things that surprised me in the 2009 Nielsen Report, but chief among them were the two interconnecting facts that adults watch more online videos than per day than teens, and the fact that teens watch "less than half as much as the typical user". Culturally, we assume that teens spend their time on youtube, phones and facebook and nothing else. Obviously, this is wrong, and while teens do favor all three of these things, it seems that youtube (and other video sharing sites) are dominated by the adult world. Now, converse to our cultural assumption about teens, we tend to view adults as hardworking and absolutely devoted to their job, and assume that they never get the desire to stare out the window for 20 minutes or neglect their work for something with a little less tedium and a little more lolcats. But, now more than ever, that's wrong too. The study states that while the average day for a teen is tightly scheduled and organized (at least until 3 PM) and with less access to computers in general, whereas adults who work with computers are left alone from 9 to 5 with their PC, tasked with finishing a task by a deadline instead of going from task to task at an appointed time. This opens up a window of opportunity for adults to watch a good deal more videos, and to browse more in general than their teen children.

One thing that I definitely connected with from the comment sheet was "I don't recall life without the internet". That's not to say I was born with a high-speed wireless card clutched in my hand, I do remember running a cord directly from the back of the phone to the computer and hearing the dial-up signal, but I don't have many memories from before my family was enduring that particular screech (It's probably one of my clearest memories because of the sound).
Another comment from the sheet that I thought was pretty descriptive of how my life has changed since the internet is "Because of the internet I never buy or rent movies", although never is a bit exaggerated. With the advent of torrenting (file-sharing) I haven't paid more than 15 dollars for a movie for quite a while. On the whole, although it may take 5 hours to download a movie, it takes a lot less fuss than going to the store. This, combined with the potential of theoretically infinite digital replication (if a friend wants this movie, I can copy it to a thumb drive, give it to him and still be able to watch it on my computer) makes it a much more preferable alternative to buying/renting. It's a simple matter of convenience and long-term effeciency.
If we were to create a boiled-down version of the Nielsen Report for Blackville School, two subjects I would like to compare Blackville's results to the report are their TV v.s. online video habits, and how much they text, to see if they approach, match, or exceed the North American average.