Largest Ever Social Study of Mobile Phone Usage

By Allan Pulga

Radio, television and the personal computer were technological devices that markedly influenced social behaviour in past decades. Today, mobile phones are the omnipresent gadget shaping the way we act.

In an effort to better understand the impact of mobile phones on our everyday lives, The Carphone Warehouse (U.K.), in association with The London School of Economics and Lord Philip Gould, conducted the largest ever study of its kind.

The recently released Mobile Life Report, which surveyed over 16,500 mobile phone users in the U.K., revealed a number of interesting facts about mobile phone use and ever-changing social norms.

Some highlights:

- Mobile phone overtakes TV: Young adults (18-24) value their mobile phone (26 per cent) more than television (11 per cent).

- Texting revolution: Our “talk ratio” is falling. On average, people send 3.6 text messages versus making 2.8 mobile calls per day.

- Mobile phones deter unwanted male advances: In past generations a book or newspaper prevented unwanted approaches in public. Today, 21 per cent of respondents (and a staggering 55 per cent of women under 25) admitted they use their mobile phones in public situations to deter unwanted approaches.

- Citizen journalism on the rise: Half of respondents said they have used or considered using the camera or video on their mobile phone to record evidence of a crime.

- Mobile at work: Almost half (47 per cent) of people that use their mobile phone for work never, or hardly ever, turn their phone off. And 41 per cent of workers feel they are “too much at the beck and call of their employer” as a result of using their mobile phone for work.

- Mobile phones, sex and relationships: One in four people (21 per cent) stops to nullify (either switch off or set to silent) their mobile phones before sex. Over half (54 per cent) of young adults (18-24) has sent or received a sexually explicit text; 25 per cent have sent or received a sexually explicit picture or video.

- The majority (57 per cent) of young adults have either sent or received in invitation to a date by text message.

The researchers behind The Mobile Life Report also classified respondents among six types of mobile phone users, listed below:

• Generation Mobile – Single, students or first-jobbers; 18-24; the most style conscious group.
• Phonatics – Single, employed, 18-34; regard their mobile phone as their most important electronic possession.
• Practical Parents – Young, cost-conscious families; 18-34; choose their mobile on basis of price, rather than style or function.
• Smart Connecteds – Affluent families and professionals; 25-44; use their mobiles to organize their busy work and social lives.
• Fingers & Thumbs – Married, middle-aged or retired with children or grandchildren.
• Silver Cynics – Affluent, married with children and coming up to retirement.