The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) which regulates more or less all communications in the UK has put together a 379 page report, its largest to date, on the habits of UK consumers. It has automatically gone for the headlines by talking about the indecent amount of time we all spend consuming media from consumer electronics devices, from the TV to radio, broadband and telecoms, through to our cellular handset.
But underneath the hype and the drama of a nation that spends 45% of its waking hours with their head immersed in such a device, there are many interesting factoids to the report, which can be downloaded as a pdf from the Ofcom site.
The author of the press release caught the imagination of headline writers everywhere, painting a picture of society not too distant from the famous Lion of Comarre, sci-fi tale by Arthur C. Clarke. In that story, mankind has run out of steam, no longer wishes to develop and has its head inside virtual reality machines, which play out each person’s favorite fantasy over and over again. It was published in 1968 and people are fond of imagining either the older generation, or the younger generation as following the same folly.
The truth is very different. What we have is a picture of the younger digital adventurers building communication of a nature that many older people can only guess at. They can do at least two things at once, such as watch TV and chat on Facebook, and often do more. Far more of their media consumption involves communication with someone else, whereas the 40 and 50 year olds tend to watch TV for most of their media consumption and watch it uninterrupted by any other activity.
People spend on average 7 hours a day consuming different media, but they squeeze in 8 hours and 40 minutes’ worth of media into that time by using more than one medium at a time. Given that the grown ups tend to be uni-tasking, this means youth is multitasking to squeeze at least 9, perhaps 10 hours of media consumption, into less and less time. Over the years this will grow.
Older consumers spend most of their media and communications time using TV and radio sets, while younger people spend at least half their time with computers, mobile phones and handheld devices.
Compared to people over 55, 16-24s are more likely to use the TV set or mobile phone for a wider range of activities. Phone calls represent 57% of all mobile phone use by over-55s, but it is less than 25% for those in the 16-24 age group. Text messaging and social networking make up 63% of all mobile phone use among 16-24s. So if you haven’t done a Facebook update on the phone, then you are behind the curve. Get with the program.
Some 40% of the time consumers spend on a computer is on communicating with other people, but of course this varies with age. People aged over 55 spend just under 40% of computer time communicating with others, and when they do they are more likely to use email, not social networking. For 16-24s, over half their time on computers is spent communicating with other people, and they are more likely to use social networking.
The younger generation is likely to use a mobile and a computer simultaneously with other media and 57% of mobile phone use takes place concurrently with other media activity and so does 62% of computer use. Most adults have trouble imagining watching TV and speaking at the same time, never mind looking up something on Wikipedia and IMing your pals.
So, far from burying their heads in the sand, as in the future vision of Clarke in the Lion of Comarre, youngsters are practicing for a society where you speak to each other, watch TV, listen to music, text people and do your homework all at the same time. And they don’t find it difficult, rather they find it boring if they are not doing two things at once. So we are evolving into multi-tasking experts, rather than going down an evolutionary blind alley of single minded focus. This is a generation that would be bored living out their favorite fantasy time and time again, they would want to change it each time, and take on two at once.
Another thing that comes out of the Ofcom report is that around half of all UK households now buy two or more of their communications services from one supplier in a bundle, up from less than a third, five years ago.
The triple-play, which takes in voice, broadband and TV bundles, now accounts for a third of the total. Funnily enough this has actually resulted in the spend for these services going down, not up.
The UK communications industry revenue declined by 2.3% during 2009 to £52.8 billion falling across all industry sectors, with telecoms revenues contracting by 2.7%, TV revenue off by only 0.4% and radio revenue through the floor, down 4%.
Household spending on communication services fell during 2009, down by £2.41 to £91.24, driven largely by falling spend on mobile and fixed voice services. We assume they used the fixed line less, and got better rates in a very aggressive cellular market. Spend on communications services accounted for 4.4% of total household expenditure in 2009, down from 4.6% in 2008.