People watch Netflix more than they exercise, spend time with their friends, and read — combined

Let’s put that into a little perspective

Nathan McAlone
Tuesday 17 May 2016 17:59 BST
Comments
Krysten Ritter shows a thug what she's made of in Jessica Jones
Krysten Ritter shows a thug what she's made of in Jessica Jones (Netflix)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Netflix made binge-watching a phenomenon, and it has become a big part of our lives.

According to consulting firm Deloitte, 70% of US consumers now “binge-watch” TV (that is, watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back). And Netflix is perfectly set up to facilitate that, especially now that it arguably makes better shows than HBO.

But just how much Netflix do we watch now?

Streaming data site CordCutting.com came up with a nifty way to estimate it. In January, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix subscribers were streaming 125 million hours per day. Later that month, Netflix passed the 75 million subscriber mark. If we assume that the amount streamed per subscriber hasn’t changed much since then, Netflix subscribers stream about 1 ⅔ hours of Netflix per day.

Let’s put that into a little perspective.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks how Americans spend their time, and it turns out we spend 38 minutes a day “socializing and communicating,” basically hanging with our friends; 17 minutes participating in sports, exercise, and recreation; and 19 minutes reading.

Netflix subscribers watch Netflix 100 minutes a day, more than all three of those activities combined.

One caveat: these are two separate data sets looking at different groups of people. But if we assume that Netflix subscribers aren’t drastically different from the average American in their social lives, fitness, or reading time, the comparison roughly holds up.

Here's a chart put together by CordCutting.com:

(CordCutting
(CordCutting (CordCutting)

Read more:

• This is why Tesla and Google are the future of cars
• How Jeff Bezos reinvented The Washington Post
• Crowdcube's cofounder says it will 'raise the bar' this year

Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in