By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-04-07 17:57:41 | Word Count: 664
It’s official. The day has come as I knew it would. I’m sure you figured this one out already too. Voice usage on mobile networks is no longer the most popular activity by far. A study has been completed and the results are in. After studying 30,000 people during a four month period ending in February 2011, comScore, a digital analytics company, has found that most people use their cell phones for text messaging. The study took into account cell phone users over the age of twelve.
Of all the study participants during those months, there was a 1.7 percent increase in text messaging going from 67.1 percent to 68.8 percent. Among all other kinds of cell phone usage, text messaging ranks highest even above actual talk time. Text message use is followed by web browsing, the next most widely used feature and activity. This category occupies the time of 38.4 percent of users during the study’s timeframe, an increase of 3.1 percent.
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Close behind web browsing was the downloading of apps. 36.6 percent of users did just that with their smart phones. Social networking placed fourth with 26.8 percent of users reporting to use a social networking site or blog from their phone. While these two categories rank lower by popularity, they measure the highest based on increased percentage. App usage went up 3.2 percent. Social networking from a mobile communications device increased by 3.3 percent.
These increases represent the growth that will surely continue for these categories. Music and games rounded out the study close to the bottom. 17.5 percent of users utilized their phones for listening to music and 24.6 percent used it for playing games. Music listening from phones went up 2.5 percent and game playing increased by 2 percent.
This study isn’t surprising in the least bit. The signs are everywhere. For kids and adults, it seems like getting a feature phone is akin to wearing the worst clothes at school or driving a raggedy car to work. It just doesn’t get you any popularity points. Smartphones are all the rage for a reason. People want to connect in multiple ways from multiple locations. A phone without all the bells and whistles is no longer cutting it. Today’s society wants more and wants it readily available at all times.
The writing, or should I say the text is on the wall. These increases signify a new wave in mobile phone activity. Cell phones should essentially be called data phones based on the study and current trends. People are more interested in a smartphone than other basic feature phones. With Android, Apple and Blackberry operating systems at the forefront of new technology, feature phones will soon be a thing of the past. People are more concerned with their data plans than with the number of talking minutes they are able to use each month. Mobile phone service providers are taking advantage of this fact and continue to charge a pretty penny for even the most meager data plans.
