Americans use TV, other media 10 hrs a day: Census

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans will spend nearly 10 hours a day watching television, surfing the Internet, reading books, newspapers and magazines and listening to music this year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Friday.

In its "Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007" released on Friday, the agency also noted that Americans drink about a gallon of soda a week, along with a half gallon each of milk, bottled water, coffee and beer.

All of which may help explain another figure in the pages of the 1,300-page book of tables and statistics: About two-thirds of Americans are overweight, including one-third of whom are obese.

The information in the abstract is culled from Census Bureau surveys and from data collected by other government agencies, industry and trade groups and private organizations.

Industry groups provided the information on media usage. They projected Americans will spend an average of nearly 4 1/2 hours daily in front of the television in 2006, or 1,555 hours in all.

Americans will spend another 2 1/2 hours listening to radio and a half hour listening to recorded music. The rest of the nearly 10 hours is spent reading newspapers, looking at the Internet, playing video games and reading other media.

Projections indicate per capita time spent with the Internet will exceed time spent reading newspapers for the first time this year. Americans spend about a half an hour per day on each activity.

Some 97 million Internet users sought news online in 2005, 92 million purchased a product and 91 million made a travel reservation, the figures show. Thirteen million created an Internet blog.

Other tidbits from the statistical abstract:

-- The Census Bureau projects U.S. population will grow to 420 million by mid-century, versus nearly 300 million today.

-- Of nearly 950,000 people who immigrated to the United States in 2004, 175,000 were from Mexico, 70,000 from India, nearly 58,000 were from the Philippines and 51,000 were from China.

-- The largest number of political refugees admitted as permanent residents in 2005 came from Cuba, with 32,555. Bosnia-Herzegovina was second with 13,298, and Ukraine third with 12,421. More political refugees were admitted from Cuba than from all of Asia and the Middle East, which had a total of 32,009.

-- U.S. airport screeners confiscated 9.4 million lighters in 2005 while searching 738.6 million passengers.

-- Nearly half of college freshmen in 2005 had a high school grade average of A, the top mark. In 1970, only 20 percent of college freshmen had top marks in high school.

-- A little more than half of U.S. households owned stocks and mutual funds in 2005.

-- Americans had 278 million debit cards in 2004 and used them for 22.2 billion transactions involving more than $1 trillion.

-- The average tax refund in 2003 was $2,154, compared with $1,802 in 2000. The average tax bill due at the time of filing was $3,499, compared with $4,406 in 2000.

-- Americans bought 2.1 billion pairs of imported shoes in 2004.