UK addicted to smartphones
New Ofcom research reveals the extent to which the UK has become addicted to smartphones, with people confessing to using them everywhere from the dining table to the bathroom and bedroom.
Despite this, revenue across Britain’s telecoms, radio and television industries has fallen over the past ten years – down from £54.3 billion to £53.4 billion (from 2000 to 2010).
There has been a sharp decline in the number of calls made using traditional fixed-line phones – just 20% of voice calls were made via BT’s network last year. And Britons are only spending £10 more on communications than at the turn of the century, according to Ofcom. The costs of services such as mobile phone contracts, broadband packages and pay-TV deals have fallen 13% since 2005.
Ofcom’s latest Communications Market Report shows that over a quarter of adults (27%) and almost half of teenagers (47%) now own a smartphone.
Most (59%) have acquired their smartphone over the past year and users make significantly more calls and send more texts than regular mobile users (81% of smartphone users make calls every day compared with 53% of regular users).
Teenagers especially are ditching more traditional activities in favour of their smartphone, with 23% claiming to watch less TV and 15% admitting they read fewer books.
And when asked about the use of these devices, 37% of adults and 60% of teens admit they are highly addicted.
Over half (51%) of adults and two thirds (65%) of teenagers say they have used their smartphone while socialising with others, nearly a quarter (23%) of adults and a third (34%) of teenagers have used them during mealtimes and over a fifth (22%) of adult and nearly half (47%) of teenage smartphone users admitted using or answering their handset in the bathroom or toilet.
Ofcom’s report also looks at the changes which have transformed the communications market during the last decade.
The majority of homes are now connected to the internet (25% in 2000, 76% in 2011) while nine out of ten people own a mobile phone (36% in 2000, 91% in 2011).
The majority of homes have adopted multi-channel TV (36% in 2000, 93% in 2010), 60% of households now own an HD-Ready TV and almost half (46%) have a digital video recorder (DVR).
The number of mobile voice minutes has grown by 250% over the past decade (from 35 billion to 125 billion per year), and the number of text messages sent has increased by 2000% (from 7 billion to 129 billion per year).
However, despite increasing use of the internet and an explosion in the range of communications devices, TV remains the nations most missed media, with viewing increasing by around 18 minutes over the last decade to just over 4 hours a day.
At the same time average monthly household spend has increased by just 12.8% in real terms, to 93.10 (83.01 in 2000) and has fallen consistently year on year since 2005 (106.50).
Ofcoms director of research, James Thickett, said: “Ofcom’s 2011 Communications Market Report shows the influence that communications technology now has on our daily lives, and on the way we behave and communicate with each other. Our research into the use of smartphones, in particular, reveals how quickly people become reliant on new technology, to the point of feeling addicted.”