This week at CES, Deloitte released a second edition of its State of the Media Democracy survey, designed to examine how Americans are interacting with emerging technologies and content. The survey's finding were interesting, and reinforce the notion that social and digital content continues to enjoy healthy growth.


Some of the survey results which I found interesting include:

58% also wish to easily connect their home TV to the Internet so they can download content or view anything at all they have on their PC (up 9 points from our 1st edition of the survey)
Over one-third of all consumers are watching TV shows online (a 15 point increase from our 1st edition)

This suggests that tv shows and movie downloads will continue to be popular. Also looks promising for technologies such as Slingbox and Apple TV.

36% use their cell phone as an entertainment device (up 12 points from our 1st edition), but advertisers and content companies have largely failed to exploit this
Overall, Millennials – who are less likely to be footing the cell phone bills – are using various cell phone applications the most–but Xers are close behind

I think it's more that advertisers haven't found a way to provide value to cell phone users, rather than interruptions. And I wonder what Deloitte defines as 'entertainment device', because I would have assumed that more than 36% of cell phone users used their phones to listen to music. But maybe not.

32% of consumers actually consider themselves to be a "broadcaster" of their own media

This one is very interesting, but I wish there was greater clarity on what "broadcaster" means. I would like to see this figure broken down to see how many people would say that they regularly blog, or create podcasts, or videos. I would think that the number of people that create and share videos will be a hot area, especially as technologies make the creation process easier, such as the Flip camera.

45% are creating personal content for others to see (up 11 points from our 1st edition)
54% are increasingly making their OWN entertainment (up 14 points from our 1st edition)

Again, wish we had a better idea of what content is being created, but both areas saw solid growth.

69% of consumers are watching/listening to content created by others (up 17 points from our 1st edition)

This makes perfect sense as many would want to interact with content that others are creating, leading to their wanting to give a go at creating similar content themselves.
All said, I believe this survey makes it obvious that people want more tools and technologies to not only create and share/broadcast content, but they also want more options on how they can interact with and enjoy content that others are creating. A good sign that both social media and digital content is still in its early stages.
Hat tip to Shel Holtz for the study's key takeaways.