Our phones are rarely far from us, and how we interact with them can say a lot. PCMag’s parent company, Ziff Media Group, conducted a survey of nearly 3,000 mobile phone users in August to see how they’ve been spending time with their phones, particularly during the pandemic.
Most respondents (54 percent) were using their phones for messaging, and just under half (40 percent) were using them for calls. All this communication is understandable, since in-person conversations have been so drastically reduced. Actually talking on a device originally designed to do just that is something of a novelty for people, and carriers were not prepared for the rise in traffic.
Internet browsing is a reflexive secondary activity to streaming for many, and 45 percent of those surveyed said that was how they spent their screen time. Far fewer people (8 percent) watched streaming content on their phones, though—probably since they were home and had bigger screens at hand. (Sorry, Quibi.)
Social networks captured most of the attention for 27 percent of survey respondents, and news was not far behind (25 percent).
With Instagram moments few and far between, camera usage was a top activity for only 15 percent. Surprisingly shopping was even less popular, at only 11 percent.
Though the survey did not measure screen time overall, you probably don’t want to check your own statistics, since those bar charts have been climbing for nearly everyone.