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| Pictured: Ashton Kutcher glued to his mobile at SXSX. |
Smartphones are the new drug of choice among people in the Internet age, Ofcom warned today.
Teens are major culprits with an ASTONISHING 60% of owners confessing to being ‘highly addicted’ to their iPhone, Android or other smart mobile. But adults are guilty also – with 7 % admitting they cant stay away.
The survey, carried out among British users show over 25% of adults and almost half of all teens own a smartphone.
But this is a new trend with most having bought these in just the last year.
Smartphone owners make significantly more calls and send more texts than regular mobile users (81% make calls every day compared with 53% of ‘regular’ users).
And teens are also ditching other activities like watching TV or reading as they surf the web or text from their multitasking phone.
“The rapid growth in the use of smartphones – which offer internet access, email and a variety of internet-based applications – is changing the way many of us, particularly teenagers, act in social situations” says Ofcoms Communications market report.
The vast majority of smartphone users (81 per cent) have their mobile switched on all the time, even in bed, and use it socialising, during meals and over 20% of adults admitted using their handset in the toilet. Teens came out worse here – with almost 50% confessing to their toilet habit.
The line between work and social time is also becoming increasingly blurred, Ofcom research found. Thirty per cent of smartphone users regularly take part in personal phone calls during work, compared with 23 per cent of regular mobile users.
Teenagers are more likely to have paid for an app download than adults, with games and music being the most popular.
Just a quarter (25 per cent) of adults had paid for an app compared to almost 40% of teens.
