According to Recent Surveys, We Are All Digitally Obsessed
Think about the last time you watched TV. Were you just watching TV? We doubt it. There's a good chance that while watching the latest episode of Making a Murderer, you were also randomly scanning your smartphone. You were definitely up to your neck in digital media. That's the main takeaway from the newest Digital Consumer Report from Nielsen. Americans are quickly becoming more and more digitally obsessed.
The report found that in 2012, the average American owned four digital devices and spent 60 hours per week watching content on one or more of them. TV still remains the king, but smartphones are catching up. In fact, smartphones are now the runner up to TV; not laptops or tablets. And the so called "second screen effect" is definitely happening. A whopping "84 percent of smartphone and tablet owners say they use their devices as second screens while watching TV," according to Nielsen. "It's an incredibly exciting evolution in the ways people are using devices to get media," said Megan Clarken, Nielsen's executive vice president.
We don't know about exciting, but the report did show just how pervasive Internet use and social media is in our culture. As for social networking, pretty much everyone does it, in every situation you can imagine. About 50 percent of mothers with kids under 13 use social media while they're in the car; 48 percent of adults aged 25 to 34 use social media while at work; and 44 percent of adults in that same age bracket use social media while at a restaurant table.
Offering support for Nielsen's findings is a new study from the Pew Research Center's Internet Project. It found that 66 percent of adults in relationships consider the Internet as a big factor in their partnership. And of those adults in a relationship who rated it is as a "major impact", 74 said it was a positive one. In fact, young people reported that the Internet and digital devices have helped settled arguments. About 41 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 in serious relationships "have felt closer to their partner because of online or text message conversations." And 23 percent of those in that age bracket said they've solved an argument "using digital tools that they were having trouble resolving in person."
The increasing dependence on the Internet and our smartphones does have one downside though: We can't seem to break away from our devices. The Nielsen report found that 40 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 use social media while in the bathroom. The other 60 percent, of course, are lying.
[Image via Flickr - Jacob Botter]
