The recent UK Ofcom study on what and how people in the UK spend their media time is very revealing and a clue to where and how brands will live in the future.

According to the study, the average consumer’s digital day is spent watching 173 minutes of live/scheduled television (supplemented by 2 minutes on line computer use for TV, 21 minutes of previously recorded programming, 6 minutes of DVD watching, 3 minutes of On-demand TV, 2 minutes of video clips on line); 15 minutes gaming; 31 minutes reading books/newspapers; 15 minutes on land-line calls and 12 minutes of mobile phone calls.

That equates to 7 hours and 5 minutes of waking hours being spent on media or communications activities (45% of the total 15 hours 45 minutes one is awake).

Of the 34 minutes spent on-line (vs 36 minutes on PC but off line) 14 minutes are spent texting, 7 minutes instant messaging, 2 minute emails via mobile and 19 minutes social networking.

A total of 62 minutes is spent listening to the radio (9 minutes music, 3 minutes on line audio, 3 mins offline music on pc, 2 minutes live radio via tv set and 8 minutes on an MP3 player).

So, what do all these numbers and stats prove? They prove that for our waking day we are creatures of communications and media/information/entertainment consumption.  No other generation has been able to better connect, communicate, upload, download, contribute, collaborate, broadcast and tweet data and content.

Literacy now means more than being able to read, write and be numerate. It means being able to access and utilize technology (by devices, portals, platforms and communities). A revolution for the way we live, learn, love and do business has occurred. Like it or not, our waking hours (according to Ofcom – 15.45 hours in the UK) are pretty busy and we are often multi-tasking both at home and at work.

One is curious, though – what are we doing for the 55% of our ‘waking’ hours classified as ‘other activities’?

The brands that have pioneered this space and are shaping our collective futures are Facebook (responsible for 45% of mobile web use in the UK); on-line service providers, communities, search engines, and mobile communications providers. The specifically named brands include Google, AOL, Orange, Microsoft and Twitter. The increasing integration of these technology platforms and accessibility via Smart phones means that the next generation is more multi-channel in their thinking and in their expectations of where, how, when and what ‘content’ is and represents.

Successful brands will be those that fully integrate both content and channel access while also using interactive and collaborative tools (crowd-sourcing, open innovation, and wiki-based ideation/sharing) to generate, create, validate and market content. Users and consumers become producers, editors and suppliers as much as access points via their digital ‘address’ to which the most resourceful and clever firms will view them both as a ‘target audience’ AND ‘an asset/resource’ to be tapped for ideas, revenue and resource.

One of the more interesting hypotheses of this study is the view that many 13 to 18 year olds today may indeed have to consider changing their names or identities in the future due to the amount of personal ‘broadcast’ information they have released into the digital world. In order to escape their ‘cyber past’ and on-line history, they will have to re-create identities for their working life which create a distance from their youthful past. However, the real question emerges about who and how data on individuals, regardless of their identity is being stored or used?

The recent issues around Google and whether or not they still uphold the ‘freedom’ aspect of the web and their commitment to ‘not being evil’ are interesting points to consider if we truly are spending so much time awake, sending, searching or spending time in the cyber world of media and communications. Perhaps brands that begin promoting and identifying themselves with greater symbols, messages or manifestos based on privacy, security and confidentiality will command more respect and value amongst their users/consumer-producers and even investors/employees. The very fact you are reading this on-line at the moment proves my point.