Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s quote puts the amount of information humans produce into perfect perspective:

“Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.”

Some experts argue the accuracy of that statement. But, the point is that we produce an unimaginably huge amount of information as an entire race.

And Schmidt’s statement was made in 2010. So it’s not unreasonable to assume the amount of information produced every two days has increased exponentially since then!

All kinds of questions and strategic arguments arise based on this information. And today, we’re going to tackle what kind of content users are most likely to pay attention to: video.

1. People Spend More Time on Video Than Social Media Daily

This claim is made according to information from eMarketer. In 2015, people over the age of 18 spent an average of 1 hour and 55 minutes on digital video daily, versus 1 hour and 44 minutes for social media.

That doesn’t sound like a huge difference – at first.

But compare those numbers to what they were in 2011. Waaaaaay back then (sarcasm intended), people spent about 39 minutes per day on digital video, compared to 1 hour and 11 minutes for social networks!

So that’s a huge reversal. And with new social media sites out that let you shoot video live, like Periscope, you wonder if that gap’s going to increase in the future.

2. American Minds are Changing to Understand Video Better

This graphic shows American visual IQ is growing at a much faster rate than overall IQ. From 1940 to an estimated projection in 2020, American overall IQ will have increased by approximately 25 points. That compares to 40 points in visual IQ.

Another stat from the same graphic supporting the argument for video preference is this: the overall SAT reading score fell to 497 in 2014.

No big deal – until you learn that this is the lowest average SAT reading score ever!

3. Marketers Are Increasing Their Digital Video Budgets

According to an IAB study, 68% of marketers and agencies believe they will increase their video ad spend in the coming year. And most advertisers agree that original digital video programming will be as important as TV within 5 years.

Will You Add Video to Your Content Mix?

So armed with all this information, do you think you will make video a bigger part of your content marketing budget going forward? Maybe you’ll explore it for the first time?

Are you convinced video will be as powerful and important as statistics claim it will be?

Or are you still hesitant?

Let us know in the comments below: