We're Number One!

Roll over Oprah, and tell Kelly Ripa the news: The World Wide Web (the graphical and multimedia portion of the Internet) is now America's queen of daytime infotainment. A new study by the Online Publishers Association (a group that is hopelessly confused about singular/plural distinctions in the second declension) concludes:

The unprecedented observational research tracked the real-time media use of 350 people, recording their actual activities every 15 seconds. The results show that the Web is now clearly a mass media -- ranking right alongside other major media when it comes to reach and duration of use. And when it comes to at-work media use, the study found that the Web clearly dominates (with 54.6% reach, compared to television's 21.1%), and is the only medium that ranks among the top two at both work and home.

Don't get too excited: As it was in the beginning of the web, your employees are just looking at porn.

Related: "Recently Unearthed E-Mail Reveals What Life Was Like In 1995"

Comments

[Mona]

From the article: "This clearly points to a reverence for the technology, but also an intense anxiety about a power they could not have understood," Caspari said. "It's safe to assume that 1995 was a terrifying and confusing time, and they must have struggled to make sense of it all."

Bullspit. I was doing heavy email in '95, and LOVED it. No terror, no confusion. Possibly some reverence, tho.

I be Postrel-type Dynamist.

[Lt.P.M.]

Mona: You're cute, but you might want to double check that source.

[linguist]

Don't get too excited: As it was in the beginning of the web, your employees are just looking at porn.

Ah, but maybe they're looking at porn for their jobs! Two second ago a middle-aged female coworker turned to me and told she has to search for images online for a project she's working on.

In particular, she's searching for "Cool Whip".

Now what sort of images do you imagine google is returning for that search string?

[Ventifact]

a group that is hopelessly confused about singular/plural distinctions in the second declension

"Modern English no longer uses declension, except for remnants of the former system in a few pronouns."

Do they publish in Latin maybe? Did you know that when the American colonies were still British possessions, "maybe" was regarded by the British as a vile and unworthy American invention, with only "perhaps" having a legitimate use in the language?