If educational trends appear to be turning digital, the same dynamic seems to take hold with the way people use media.
A poll says that in the US, while news acquisition by the public has been mainly through TV, the internet, as major competitor, has rapidly been catching up.
According to Pew Research (chart also from them)
The internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans' main source of national and international news. Currently, 41% say they get most of their news about national and international news from the internet, which is little changed over the past two years but up 17 points since 2007. Television remains the most widely used source for national and international news -- 66% of Americans say it is their main source of news -- but that is down from 74% three years ago and 82% as recently as 2002.
The study further notes that the less educated has remained as the last bastion or the key consumer of TV.
In other words, the less educated will likely be the last segment to adapt to the deepening use of technology.
And such transition appears to be corroborated by corporate ad spending on a global scale, where online spending has been fast closing on the gap with TV.
According to the Economist,
GLOBAL spending on advertising will grow by 4.5% in 2011, double the rate of the previous year, according to ZenithOptimedia, an ad agency. This will be led by online advertising which will increase by 16%. Television advertising will also grow, led by emerging markets, where it is an especially dominant medium. But spending on print advertising will fall by around 1%. Extending print-media brands online offers some hope of reversing the downturn, but digital ad revenue will not replace that lost by print in the foreseeable future, according to the World Association of Newspapers.
Changes have been happening at the margin.
These suggest of the broadening use of digital web based technology for a substantial share of our social activities.
Traditional mass based lifestyle tailored to the industrial era have been paving way to the information age characterized by social connectivity predicated on competition, diffusion, diversity, and specialization; an environment which can be identified with the great Austrian economist F. A. Hayek. Even TV programming trends appear as exhibiting similar symptoms (chart above from the same Pew study).
Overall, this means that lifestyle and commerce will increasingly evolve towards niches—or based on shared interests or specific ethos, that will be marked by more competition.
The implication is that statistics based on aggregates will likely become more irrelevant. In addition, investments will likely center on these growth “niche” areas. (yes, that’s an investment tip alright)
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