Humanity is doomed: We watch 45 BILLION hours of YouTube a month

And that's just the stuff Google can count on mobile devices

Google's revealed just how perilous humanity's future existence has become, by shedding a light on our YouTube viewing habits.

“1.5 billion logged in viewers visit YouTube every single month,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, blogged last week. “That’s the equivalent of one in every five people around the world! And how much do those people watch? On average, our viewers spend over an hour a day watching YouTube on mobile devices alone.”

Do the math: over a month that means people spend at least 45 billion hours of staring at YouTube on tiny, tiny screens. And that's just logged-in people on mobile devices: add in the dozen or so people Google can no longer ID, Facebook vids, those YouTubing on desktops and laptops, smaller audiences on Vimeo and the hordes on Netflix and competitors and … well let's just put the calculator down now before it all gets too depressing.

Things are going to get worse, too. Wojcicki says “Last year, we announced a new sharing feature that lets you share videos right from the YouTube app. In a couple weeks, it’ll be available in Latin America and then throughout the U.S. soon after that.”

All of which will mean even more time spent on YouTube and even more ad dollars heading Google's way, often at the expense of broadcasters who have an obligation to do useful things like comprehensive news as well as cat videos culled from YouTube. ®