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The mass media play an important role in our lives. Our society is saturated with media forms - television, newspapers, magazines, radio, the internet. The rise in portable media devices like latops, tablets and smart phones means that we're never too far away from a constant flow of information and entertainment. 

It's interesting to consider how much of your life you spend consuming media texts.

In a 2005 study conducted by Bell State University's Center for Media Design found that the average American spends about nine hours a day using some type of media. The study also found:

• Americans spend a daily average of 240.9 minutes watching television;
• Americans spending an average of 120 minutes using computers;
• women spend more time using more than two types of media at once;
• the use of the web, e-mail and phones is much higher on Fridays than any other day.

"Television is still the 800-pound gorilla because of how much the average person is exposed to it," noted Bell State University telecommunications professor Robert Papper. "However, that is quickly evolving. When we combine time spent on the Web, using e-mail, instant messaging and software such as word processing, the computer eclipses all other media with the single exception of television. The introduction of the computer into the workplace also has created a whole class of multitaskers. We thought young people would be better at multitasking, but computers have forced older workers to do more than one thing at a time to survive in the workplace."

Source: Average person spends more time using media than anything else 

Calculate Your Media Usage 

Use the calculator below to estimate how much time you spend using the media (note: 0.1 of an hour is 6 minutes).