Digital lifestyle

The growing proliferation of consumer electronics -- the average U.S. household now owns an average of 26 consumer electronics devices according to the Consumer Electronics Association -- is the whirlwind force that's fueling a whole new consumer culture, one that's changing the rules of the marketing game.

As Jay Leno observed on "The Tonight Show" this past November, "The only time, kids go camping now is front of Circuit City waiting for a videogame.” While this tongue-in-cheek comment may overstate the case somewhat, it's not far from the truth. Children now begin using consumer electronic devices at an average age of 6.7 years old, according to The NPD group's recently released "Kids and Consumer Electronics Trends III" report. That's down from the average age of 8.1 years the research firm found in a 2005 study.

Those same kids are changing the rules of social interaction by fueling MySpace's incredible growth. With a membership that already exceeds some 181 million accounts, MySpace could be compared to the population of Brazil, the world's fifth-largest country (with 188 million people).

More importantly, the growing role of social networking signals a significant shift in internet use and suggests that the consumer dialog is changing. The effects of this lifestyle change are becoming more evident as social nets rewrite the rules of social engagement.

The latest media consumption data show this trend clearly. NBC's average prime-time audience of 4.8 million people ending June 2 was the smallest since at least 1991, reports Nielsen Media Research. You'd have to go back to the days of black-and-white TV to find a smaller figure. Meanwhile, "CBS Evening News" reached only 5.5 million people that week, its smallest audience since 1987. While poor TV network ratings have been the story of this spring, there's clearly a bigger force at work here.

Meanwhile, newspaper readership is falling all over the world. Even in the newspaper-crazy U.K., the overall yearly decline for dailies is almost 4 percent. Asked why people do not read newspapers, more than half of survey respondents to a Harris poll conducted in six countries (including the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Germany) pointed to lack of time (in Spain the figure was lowest, at 44 percent).

A new Media-Screen report sheds light on this trend. Broadband users, the heaviest consumers of media, spend an hour and 40 minutes -- 48 percent of their spare time -- online on a given weekday. The digital lifestyle is affecting that precious commodity of time, which brings us to the next ubertrend that's impacting media use in a profound way.

Next: Time compression