PlusOne - Musings of a marketer

The Mobile Life survey, conducted by YouGov, of more than 16,500 British adults who use mobile phones finds that:

Daily Life
• 92% of mobile phone owners cannot get through a typical day without using their phone
• 9% of 18-24 year olds – around 400,000 people – admit they are addicted to their phone, so they no longer feel in control of how they use it
• For people 18-24 years old, their mobile phone matters more to them than television
• Most people aged 18-40 say mobile phones have improved their quality of life. However,
mobile phone-owners over 40 are evenly divided
• People aged 18-29 tend to use their phones more to send and receive texts than to hold
conversations
• Two out of five people have lost the use of their mobile phone at least once. The main reason was that the phone was broken

Health
• Only 18% of people are strongly concerned about the health risks of living near a mobile
phone mast and only 6% of people strongly agree that they are concerned that using a
mobile phone too much could be harmful to their health

Etiquette
• Most people turn their mobile phone off, or to silent when in a cinema or theatre – but not in a restaurant, on holiday or at night
• Three out of four people say that it is unreasonable to talk on a mobile phone at the
dinner table at home – but only 9% think it is unreasonable to use a mobile phone on a train

Driving
• 56% of mobile phone users say it is always unsafe for motorists to use a mobile phone
while driving
• Yet 12% of all mobile phone users say they use a phone frequently while driving
• Most of this group use a hands-free system, but 19% of them “rarely” or “never” use a
hands-free system – which means that up to 700,000 people routinely break the law on the use of phones while driving

Society
Mobile phone habits
Number of mobiles - 14% of people have two or more mobile phones that they use regularly
Number of calls - On average people make 2.8 calls a day
Number of texts - On average people send 3.6 text messages a day
Phone replacement - 70% of people replaced their mobile phone within the last 18 months
PAYG vs contract - Of people who own their own mobile phones (as opposed to having
a company phone) 48% have PAYG and 52% have monthly contracts
Choosing a mobile - When choosing a mobile phone, the most important factor for people
phone is function ( 31%), price ( 29%) and style ( 16%)

Crime & Safety
• 9% of all mobile phone owners say that they have had their phone stolen
• Young women aged 18-24 are more likely to have had their mobile phone stolen, 17%, than young men, 10%
• Mobile phones have given most women a much greater feeling of safety when driving alone and when out and about – shopping, going to a bar or travelling to and from work
• Mobile phones are used to deter unwanted advances. 54% of young women sometimes
use their mobile phone specifically, “to deter people from approaching me”

Recycling
• Britain has a vast “mobile phone mountain” of old mobile phones lying around at home. More than one person in three says they have held on to their old phone, rather than giving it away, trading it in, recycling it or throwing it away

Family
• Almost half of all mothers and one in three fathers, ask a son or daughter how to use
certain functions on their own mobile phones
• Almost half, 48% of all parents of mobile phoneowning children are not worried that their child’s health might suffer if they use a mobile phone for long periods
• 45% of grandmothers think mobile phonescan help strenghen communication between
grandchildren and grandparents

Relationships
• Mobile phones are revolutionising the love lives of young adults. More than half of mobile phone users aged 18-24 have either sent or received an invitation to a date by text
• Half of young adult phone users have sent or received a sexually explicit text
• More than double the number of mobile phone users think that when people send flirty texts to someone other than their partner, this is a form of cheating on their relationship, compared to those who do not regard it as cheating
• More than one in four men and women aged 18-24 admit that they regularly use their mobile phone to keep in touch with someone they don’t want their partner or family to know about
• Only 14% of people would turn their phone off completely when having sex

Work
• Almost half, 46.5%, of people who work use their mobile phone as part of their job. 24% do so regularly
• Almost half of these workers say they never, or hardly ever, turn their phones off
• People who use a mobile phone for work have significantly more daily calls than
the rest – 50% have six or more daily calls compared with only 5% of people who do
not use a mobile phone for work

Technorati tags mobile phone | phone usage survey | cellphone culture