Matters of Scale - Attention Deficit Disorder
Number of responses in the three months after the makers of Lifesavers candy created a web
site last year asking whether the pineapple Lifesavers should be replaced by another flavor | 400,000 |
Number of times the Worldwatch web site was viewed in that same period | 283,000 |
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Number of televisions per 1,000 U.S. citizens | 805 |
Number of daily newspaper subscriptions per 1,000 U.S. citizens | 212 |
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Working vocabulary of the average 14-year-old in the United States in 1950 | 25,000 words |
Average vocabulary in 1999 | 10,000 words |
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Number of hours per day the average American spent consuming some form
of media (television, radio, Internet, newspaper, etc.) in 1995 | 10 |
Number of hours spent in 1998 | 12 |
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Number of corporate logos the average American can recognize today | more than 1,000 |
Number of plants and animals native to his or her locality that the average
American can recognize today | fewer than 10 |
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Sources: Lifesavers: personal correspondence with John Barrows, Senior Manager,
Marketing Communication, Nabisco,
Inc., 11 November 1999; television numbers, and newspaper subscriptions: U.N.
Development Programme, Human
Development Report 1998 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); vocabularies,
corporate logo and species recognition:
David Orr, “Verbicide,” Conservation Biology, August 1999; media
consumption: Robert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor
Democracy (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999).