Data released by the US census bureau today forecasts that Americans will spend a total of 65 days watching TV next year and 41 days listening to the radio. A week each will be given to reading newspapers and surfing the Internet. All that reading, surfing and listening will occupy 3,518 hours of the average American adult's year - the equivalent of almost five months. But such indolence doesn't come cheap. The average American, says the survey, will spend $936 on media in the coming year.

The information comes in the 126th statistical abstract, which collates data from census bureau studies as well as international organisations, non-profit-making groups and the private sector. The abstract, which has been published most years since 1878, makes comparisons with previous years as well as providing forecasts. Thus the survey shows 97 million Internet users looked for news online in 2005, 92 million bought a product online and 91 million made an online travel reservation. About 16 million Americans used a social or professional networking site such as MySpace, and 13 million created a blog in 2005, with 39 million reading someone else's blog.

The information on Internet use is based on surveys of US adults carried out in September 2005 by the Pew Research Centre. The survey also showed 25 million Americans downloaded videos to their computers, and 24 million re-mixed material found online to make their own creation.

Despite much speculation about the death of old media and the rise of the new, reading a newspaper and surfing the Internet will each consume the same amount of the average American adult's time next year, the census bureau says. Nevertheless, a week spent reading the news on the Internet represents a significant change in habits. Ten years ago, according to a Pew report in the summer, one in 50 Americans regularly got their news from the Internet. Today the figure is one in three. But the figures show that the rate of increase in online news readership has slowed since 2000, suggesting, says the report, that "online news has evolved as a supplemental source that is used along with traditional news media outlets. It is valued most for headlines and convenience".

    "This new census bureau material highlights just how dramatically we have moved into the information age," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American life project. "Pick any metric you like and you'll see that the volume of information and media in people's lives has grown, the velocity of that information as it circulates in their lives has increased, and the variety of information has exploded."

    Elsewhere the census bureau statistics showed that people in US households drank an average of 88 litres of bottled water in 2004, compared with 10 litres each in 1980. But while some were enjoying mountain-fresh water, others were struggling to get enough food. Out of 112 million households, 13.5 million were deemed "food insecure" in a 2004 survey by the US Department of Agriculture. "Food insecure" is defined as having "limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways". The figures do not include homeless people. The lives of those with homes were often made uncomfortable by nasty smells. In 2005 residents of 3.7 million housing units said they were bothered by odours in the neighbourhood. At the other extreme, the US has more millionaires than ever, 3.5 million of them, according to Internal Revenue Service figures published last year. More than half a million live in California.

And as the ranks of the rich have increased, so the beliefs and aspirations of the young have evolved. In 1970, 85 per cent of university entrants thought abortion should be legalised, 59 per cent thought capital punishment should be abolished and 57 per cent aimed to keep up with political affairs. By 2005, those figures had fallen to 55 per cent in favour of legalised abortion, 33 per cent against capital punishment, and 36 per cent who aimed to follow politics. And while in 1970, 79 per cent of university entrants said they had a personal objective of "developing a meaningful philosophy of life", by last year 75 per cent defined their objective as "being very well off financially".

Dan Glaister

The Guardian

Los Angeles