People watch Netflix more than they hang out with their friends, exercise, and read — combined (NFLX)

Netflix

Netflix made binge-watching a phenomenon, and it has become a big part of our lives.

According to consulting firm Deloitte, 70% of US consumers now “binge-watch” TV (that is, watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back). And Netflix is perfectly set up to facilitate that, especially now that it arguably makes better shows than HBO.

But just how much Netflix do we watch now?

Streaming data site CordCutting.com came up with a nifty way to estimate it. In January, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix subscribers were streaming 125 million hours per day. Later that month, Netflix passed the 75 million subscriber mark. If we assume that the amount streamed per subscriber hasn’t changed much since then, Netflix subscribers stream about 1 ⅔ hours of Netflix per day.

Let’s put that into a little perspective.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks how Americans spend their time, and it turns out we spend 38 minutes a day “socializing and communicating,” basically hanging with our friends; 17 minutes participating in sports, exercise, and recreation; and 19 minutes reading.

Netflix subscribers watch Netflix 100 minutes a day, more than all three of those activities combined.

One caveat: these are two separate data sets looking at different groups of people. But if we assume that Netflix subscribers aren’t drastically different from the average American in their social lives, fitness, or reading time, the comparison roughly holds up.

Here’s a chart put together by CordCutting.com:

Netflix

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