Teenagers and Their Smartphones in 2011

The newest mobile phone numbers are in from Nielsen in their new State of the Media Mobile Media Report for the third quarter of 2011. The results probably won’t be surprising to anyone who hangs out with teenagers. In short, more teens are getting smartphones, they’re downloading more data, texting a lot, and talking less.

Smartphones still aren’t the majority for teenagers. Only 40% of 13-17 year-olds now own a smart phone, compared to 53% of 18-24 year-olds and 64% of 25-34 year-olds. But the numbers have grown at an insane rate compared to years past. This table provides a good breakdown.

I notice several things from this table:

§  Slightly more females now own smartphones where it used to be 10% more males in 2009.


§  Every age category has more than doubled in the last 2 years.


§  25-34 and 18-24 still dominate in smartphone ownership

According to the same Mobile Media Report, the top two sites accessed by smartphones are Google (#1) and Facebook (#2).


Nielson used data from the monthly cell phone bills of 65,000+ mobile subscribers and analyzed mobile usage trends among teenagers in the U.S.

§  Teens age 13-17 now use an average of 320 MB of data per month (a 256% increase over last year’s 90MB average). (Males used 382 MB, females used 286 MB.


§  Average number of messages (SMS and MMS) exchanged monthly by a teenager is now 3,417 per month. (3,952 by females, 2,815 by males)


§  Voice time (phone calls) has gone down from an average of 685 minutes to 572 minutes.


Hmmmmm.

By Jonathan McKee

10,000 Text Messages

According to Telegraph the average teenager sends almost 10,000 text messages per year, and is so worried about missing an important call that they leave their mobile phone switched on overnight, according to the latest survey into the digital habits of young people.

The research, which was carried out by Bebo, a social networking site popular with teenagers, reveals that more than two-thirds of young people use their mobile phones and digital cameras to keep a photographic record of their lives. Almost 75 per cent of those surveyed said they used social networking websites to share photos and keep in touch with friends.

Around half of those questioned said they had as many as 250 "friends" with whom they kept in regular contact via the internet. Most of the teenagers who responded to the survey, which was posted globally on the Bebo website, said they spent the majority of their spare time on the web, with almost one third saying they watched more than 50 online videos per week, usually on sites such as YouTube and Bebo, and other social networking websites such as MySpace.

But watching traditional, broadcast television is still a popular pursuit for many young people, with 31 per cent admitting to watching more than five hours of television per day, and 32 per cent stating that they watched TV for between three and five hours per day.

"Communicating with one another is one of the most popular hobbies among teenagers today," said Sarah Gavin, global director of communications for Bebo, which has more than 11 million users in the UK. "If technology enables them to do this more easily, then it makes the experience all the more appealing to them."

And new research suggests that using social networking sites might even be beneficial to youngsters. A study by the MacArthur Foundation in the United States concluded that use of sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace helped young people to learn crucial life skills.