Tuesday, December 04, 2018

~ Smart devices & human behaviors ~

Has been a while since I blogged. No, I haven't taken digital detox. 

Even though the smart mobiles have been there since 1998, Symbian Era (1), smartphones became popular after Apple's debut of iPhone in 2007. The success of iPhone, is not because of the smartphone itself. AppStore is the reason behind success of iPhone - Ease of search and discovering apps, app installation & updates, in-app purchases, push notifications, managing devices became seamless and convenient. The rapid adoption and explosion of smart-devices, primarily smartphones, from 2013 till now can be attributed mainly due to drop in prices of smartphones especially in the Android space. iPhone in most parts of the world is still a premium device & while Android enjoys the 84.8% of market share according to IDC report (1). 


We now have more smartphones than the population on the planet - "With 7.7 billion subscribers by the end of 2017, 103.4% of the world population currently hold a subscription to mobile cellular telephony on average" (2)

The primary objective of the post was to write about how slowly and steadily the smart-devices are playing a major role in our daily lives with adopting more & more connected devices within our homes. 

Smartphones have made urban living easy and at the same time lazy. We have an application (app) for almost anything and getting things done without moving inch from the couch.
  1. Shopping - medicines, clothing, books, toys
  2. Streaming content - video, music, audiobooks
  3. Navigating city traffic
  4. Commuting - hailing a cab within Bangalore or in another city within India or outside
  5. Booking - hotels, flights, buses, trains
  6. Ordering food 
  7. Reviews or local directory lookup
  8. Buy / Sell - Used items
  9. Financial - payments, MF investments, trading, retail banking
  10. 24x7 - Delivery or pickup
  11. SocialMedia or Networking
  12. Messaging or Communication - Email, SMS, Video
  13. Video and Photo 
  14. Utilities - Speedtest, Scan, FileTransfer
Most people have a minimum of 1 app per category. In some categories, people install up-to 4/5 apps. With so many apps installed, people use most of these apps for transactional purposes. It's only the SocialMedia apps - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - which are trigger apps used often and lose track of time. Below is an interesting data point on how 1/3rd of online population find it difficult to break the habit from technology.



Watch this video to find out how Apple & Google have introduced new features to manage screen time per app in their latest iteration of OS. 


Personally, I have disconnected from Facebook in July 2015 and never looked back. However, I do spend significant amount of time on Twitter reading / following various subjects of interests. That's something that I need to work upon myself in the coming months to decrease the screen time.

Below are some insights into human behaviors 


Gen Z: A Look Inside Its Mobile-First Mindset (4)


What online activities do Indians do on their smartphones at least weekly? (5)

The OTT experience: Understanding connected living room audiences 2018 (6)

  • In fact, Americans collectively spend nearly 8 billion hours per month consuming content on connected TV devices—such as Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire.
  • Consumers 13 and older who watch content on connected devices spend an average of more than an hour daily, compared to 36 minutes on the computer and 24 minutes on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets 

Always Connected: How smartphones and social keeps us engaged (7)

  • Half of total US population uses Smartphones i.e 155.1 Million people (2012)
  • Primary usage: Text/Message, Talk, Message on FB. All of them are direct communication.
  • Wake up call: Within the first 15 minutes of waking up, 4 out of 5 smartphone owners are checking their phones.

References:

1. Symbian OS 
2. Smartphone OS market-share 
3. Mobile market penetration
4. Gen Z: A Look Inside Its Mobile-First Mindset
5. Consumer Barometer India 
6. The OTT experience: Understanding connected living room audiences 
7. Always Connected 

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