First off, before diving into the below, check out Jeffrey Cole's full presentation on video. 

Jeffrey Cole, Director, Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, has spent the last 11 years tracking TV usage. In the next three to four years Cole believes that screen time will rise from 30 hours per week to 50 hours per week. We have seen recent examples of explosions in screen time with this year’s Super Bowl finally surpassing the viewership on the final episode of MASH in 1983. Cole also shared that ratings for live TV events are on the rise due to co-watching via social networks. He predicts that we will start to see increased social media engagements in TV programming.

Cole also addressed the explosive growth of social networks, specifically on Facebook he predicts that Facebook will continue for the next five years and then begin to splinter into specialized communities. He also reminded us that marketers are no longer asking the question, “should we engage with customers online?” Now marketers are engaging 365 days a year with their customers online, which has become a key way in capturing information and iterating on campaigns and products. Although many markers talk about social or mobile apps as the next shiny object to chase after Cole warns that your learning curve must be steeper than your action curve. You have to be paying attention to what consumer trends are on the rise.

Of the studies they have conducted, they've only seen 2% of internet users move away from internet usage annually, and these drops are because of a gap in employment where people don’t have access to the internet or when people’s computers have broken down.

Cole said that people are starting to say “e-nuff already” and are searching for balance in their internet usage and in their research they are seeing consumers setting some boundaries in their time spent in social networks and their time spent in their e-mail inboxes.

Cole also spoke to the move to make lives simper by peeling away devices and mentioned a few gadgets we can now toss out including cameras, usb drivers, camcorders, and mice. As we move away from these devices our worlds begin to center around one device and that one device Cole believes is the mobile phone.

In closing Cole shared the trends they are seeing with college students as predictions for the future (p.s. see Thoughts on the Future of Advertising by Michael Aged 21) – they are seeing the decline of landlines, newspaper subscriptions, and watch wearing. You can learn about Cole’s research at www.digitalcenter.org.

Cheers,

Jenny Leahy

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