The Mobile Data Association

 

Headlines from the report have concentrated on how the mixed media of television, phones and the internet take up almost half our waking hours.

 

The report says that the average person spends around 15 hours 45 minutes every day awake, of which seven hours and five minutes are spent “engaging in media and communications activities.”

 

 

But thanks to multi-tasking – that is, using more than one device at a time – the survey found that young adults were able to squeeze the equivalent of nine hours 32 minutes worth of consumption into that time.

 

The role and penetration of mobile, and especially smartphones is acknowledged high up the report, with the prominent yet vague mention of ‘other communications devices’ also interesting. It could be a reflection of the convergent, connected technologies across a range of new platforms such as tablet computers and handheld games consoles. The variety makes them less easy to bracket.

 

Mobile data specifically is said to have risen by 240% between 2007 and 2009, while the report also indicates that the text messaging total is up to four times the total volume per day in 2004.

 

James Thickett, Director of Market Research and Market Intelligence at Ofcom said that the mobile internet has “untethered people from being in one particular place.” F acebook is shown to dominate mobile web browsing, accounting for 45% of all mobile web use in the UK, followed by Google at 8%.

 

Mobile data revenues are said to have grown faster than fixed revenues, with data based on operator returns indicating that non-SMS data revenues rose 90% between Q4 2007 and Q4 2009. Mobile broadband and smartphone mobile web browsing were said to be responsible.

 

The full Ofcom annual Communications Market report can be downloaded here.