time use studies of new media

time use studies of new media

I am increasingly troubled within my own work about the imprecise nature of time use questions in surveys. We know that broad questions like \”how much time did you spend using email in a typical week\” are inherently unreliable. Time-use diaries are the gold standard, but they are difficult to analyze and very demanding of participants. I am starting to explore ways to use new technologies to automate the collection of both social network data, the use of media, and exposure to different media content. This article from the Globe and Mail recently came to my attention. It is about a pager size device that picks up inaudible sounds transmitted as part of radio and TV broadcasts to record exposure to different media. Of course it only gets exposure, not attention. Now if only we could find something similar to accurately record time spent using other media, such as email and Internet use, in context with participant\’s location and what they were doing online (reading CNN vs playing games).