Statistical Abstract

I was browsing the The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2007 and find it interesting. Essentially it is a compilation of statistics from the Census Bureau that is designed to give people a view of what a typical American is and does during the year. Those abstracts are fun reading but "typical" or average is hardly accurate to the individual when behavior is measured. I think it gives a more "general" trend about what people are doing. I know I do not fall into many of the statistical ranges I read in the report, and think most people would react the same way. But nonetheless here are some of the highlights of the report I think are interesting.
* People over the age of 12 will spend nearly 5 of the 12 months in the year watching TV, surfing the Internet reading newspapers, and listening to cell phones and other electronic gadgets. It seems a lot but we are addicted to many of those gadgets. I think that the stats for 20 years ago, before the invention of the electronics, would probably show much less investment in that kind of second hand communication and more in personal contact. Too, I imagine reading frequency levels would have been greater. But now communication by print has been replaced by the electronic modes.
* Projections for 2007 are that the average American will spend 65 days in front of the TV, 41 days listening to radio and one week on the internet. The radio figure surprises me. Isn't that a dying medium, replaced with I pods and other personal music machines?
* Adults will spend one week reading a newspaper. In my case the TV and newspaper time allotments are probably reverse. I am a newspaper junkie who reads the newspaper first thing in the morning every day. But many newspapers are folding now Most cities are down to one or two papers, as opposed the then many years ago. I think this reflects the increasing popularity TV news and entertainment, which has stolen the spotlight from print media in this age of non reading. Unfortunately, electronic news has a tendency to be ephemeral, more entertainment than hard news and surely with much less depth. No wonder George Bush can be elected to the Presidency twice. Despite more information sources, the voters are less informed today.
* Among adults, 97 million use the Internet fro news, 92 million purchased something on the net and 91 million used the Internet for travel reservations. I have done all of those things, but search for news only after it immediately happened, finding the depth on the net about a story to be less than from print mediums.
* U.S. consumers will spend $55.5 billion to purchase 3.17 billion books in 2007. We still read a lot, but mostly books rather than newspapers and magazines. In my case, since I prefer non fiction to fiction, the totals are reversed. I spend far more on newspapers and magazines than on books.
* There were 3.5 million U.S. millionaires in 2001 (the last year measured), nearly half of them live in California. Being a millionaire is not a novelty anymore. You'll have to guess whether I am a millionaire....I am not saying.
* More than half the U.S. households were stockholders and their total household income range was $65,000 to $125,000. Those with money increase their worth with stock investments and most people with an education and money use the stock market extensively.
* There were 278 million debit cards in the U.S. and they were used 22.2 billions times, totally more than 1 trillion dollars in transactions. I do not have a debit card and only one credit card that I only use when I have to (because the merchants will accept only cash or a credit card). I maintain most credit is bad for consumers as it leads to debt due to interest charges, and I always try to pay by personal check or with cash.
* More than 65 million people did volunteer work in 2005, devoting a median 50 hours per year to religious, educational and other activities. Americans are among the world leaders in amount of volunteer service to their community. I confess to not volunteering at all this year.
Well, that's some of what was in the abstract. Anything in this that surprises you or is in contrast to your own experiences? Ever get confused about where you are headed? Well, we all have at one time or another. But one German fellow may have set the record for confused directions. The 21-year-old tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in Sydney, Australian but instead landed 13,000 kilometers away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site. Dressed for the Australian summer in t-shirt and shorts, "Wrong City" Tobi Gutt left Germany for a four-week holiday. Instead of arriving "down under," Tobi found himself on a different continent and bound for the very cold weather state of Montana. "I did wonder but I didn't want to say anything," He told a German newspaper. "I thought to myself, you can fly to Australia via the United States."
Wrong Way Gutt's airline ticket routed him via the U.S. city of Portland, Oregon, to Billings, Montana. Only as he was about to board a commuter flight to Sidney -- an oil town of about 5,000 people -- did he realize his mistake. Wrong City Toby had only a thin jacket to keep out the winter cold, spent three days in Billings airport before he But the ending is a good one, Toby was able to buy a new ticket to Australia with 600 euros in cash that his parents and friends sent over from Germany. "I didn't notice the mistake as my son is usually good with computers," his mother, Sabine, said. Haha I suggest both computer and geography lessons for Tobi when he returns to Germany.