Thursday, 04 Sep, 2008 Science

Because of endless news and entertainment on television, Internet and radio, people only have an hour of freedom each day. The media researchers M-Lab discovered that 1 in 3 adults do not dispose of even one hour of rest while 1 in 5 have not more than 30 minutes of media-free time.

About 32 percent of people who participated in the study said that they were disturbed at night by the sound of television or radio. Almost 71 percent of the correspondents said that before going to sleep at night they always listed to television or radio or checked the Internet for news.

This month Ofcom has released a report which said that each week adults in Great Britain consume more than 50 hours of media.

"I don't think it's that surprising. I am more surprised there are people who have this golden hour where they do nothing. People multi-task. I think people usually have two bits of media going at the same time. Back in the day, the phone was usually in the hall but because phones are mobile now people can move around, people can watch TV and use the phone. I think it's the way media has become portable," said Graham Williams, the director of M-Lab.

He mentioned that 5 or 6 years ago people would simply go into a room and take a phone call and today you have to ask people to turn off their phone. Earlier people would not try to take a phone call at a conference but today they do it.

"I think its the way people work and I think people accept it. A newspaper would have previously got one golden moment when the reader would sit by themselves and read it. Nowadays I watch people on the train they have a walkman on and read a paper at the same time," he said.

Williams also said that noise represents a vital sense of safety and companionship for some people. Most often people find free time from 12-00pm to 12-30pm and from 5pm to 5-30pm. This means that people get away from the noise generated by media when they go to eat some food.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk