Metrics Are a Polaroid Picture in a Panoramic World
How would you reach someone who spends almost no time on their smartphone and not a whole lot of time on their computer, either?
That would be the question of any media outlet observing my news consumption habits over the course of two days, during which I logged every story I consumed. And the results surprised me, even. My time was spent almost exclusively on my computer, and I hardly spent much time there.
But wait — before you answer the above question by saying “I wouldn’t bother,” I’ll give you more context.
To be fair, my media consumption habits over the course of these two days weren’t the best representation of my typical habits. Aside from an unusually action-packed couple of days, I’d also recently become a bit annoyed with my phone. In an effort to curb my instinct to reach for it any time the slightest hint of boredom crept in, I recently deleted the Facebook app from my phone — a move that has stuck and effectively decreased mindless scrolling. (The Twitter app still fulfills that need, though.)
Polls indicate that about 56 percent of people get their news on their smartphones, and if you had only this snapshot of my habits to go on, you might automatically put me in the old-school minority. But that’s the problem with snapshots — or purely measuring metrics — they don’t offer any context or explanation. And sometimes, they obscure reality.
If you instead spent a bit more time analyzing my behaviors (and if you had more data to go by than just a couple of days’ worth), you’d see a mix of phone and computer use all throughout the day. You’d see high- and low-brow stuff. A lot of it would be the result of clicks through social media (yes, still often including Facebook), and many others would be accessed through Google searches or app launches. You’d notice that I consume long-reads on my phone and regularly visit sites via Twitter on my laptop. This more fully developed picture would be kind of a mess, actually. You wouldn’t have me pegged nearly as fast if you had all this information to go on.
But, for argument’s sake — and since you don’t have all of that to go on — let’s say this two-day period does reflect my media consumption habits and that I represent a segment of the population that can’t be ignored, because I think in some ways I do.
The fact is, computer hunch — that tense, stiff sensation in your neck and shoulders after a long day in front of the screen — exists for a reason. A staggering number of Americans spend hours and hours every day on their computers. Me? I work on my computer, I blog on my computer, I read on my computer and, sometimes, I watch TV on my computer. I’m glued to the damn thing, which isn’t ideal. I and many Americans spend too much time on our phones, too, and digital purging, like deleting Facebook from my phone, is not uncommon.
People like me who want to be informed and entertained, yet also don’t want to be chained to their devices, have a love-hate relationship with those devices. This is an important takeaway for media outlets that are trying to attract readers (and if they’re smart, attract repeat readers). It means that to engage these folks, the media needs to create quality content, period. Long-reads, short-reads, high-brow or low-brow media can all be of high quality if they’re truly helpful, informative or entertaining. And click-bait? We have no tolerance for it and would rather jump off the proverbial cliff that is digital purging than waste time on something that’s merely devised for a sell.
In the meantime, I’m off to go listen to some vinyl and read a newspaper.
