Tablets are Americans’ New TV Buddies And eReaders Popular Bedfellows
A new Nielsen Company blog says the market analysis firm’s most recent research on mobile connected devices reveals on how consumers are using their tablet computers, eReaders and smartphones, and where they are using them as well.
According to Nielsen’s recent survey of nearly 12,000 connected device owners:
• Seventy percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners said they use their devices while watching television, compared to only 35 percent of eReader owners.
• Sixty-one percent of eReader owners use their device in bed, compared to 57 percent of tablet owners and 51 percent of smartphone owners.
But just how much time are tablet, eReader, and smartphone owners spending using their device while watching TV or lying in bed Neilsen asked?
When asked how they spent time with their device:
• Tablet owners said 30 percent of their time spent with their device was while watching TV compared to 21 percent lying in bed.
• Smartphone owners say that 20 percent of the time they use their smartphones is while watching TV, compared to 11 percent lying in bed.
• eReader owners indicated only 15 percent of their eReader time was spent watching TV, though they spent a whopping 37 percent of their device usage time in bed.
The new Neilsen findings square with a report released earlier this week by Forrester Research senior analyst Sarah Rotman Epps who notes about what the “post-PC” era really means that survey data show that most tablet owners use them in the living room sitting on the couch.
One of the impediments to truly comfortable computing from the get-go has been that one is typically obliged to address the machine either in a formal posture such as at a properly ergonomic (hopefully) desktop workstation, or alternatively even worse — the ergonomically unsound contortions required to use a laptop literally on your lap, or even on a table or desktop due to the lack of separaton of the screen and keyboard.
The iPad, on the other hand, offers a great deal more flexibility in terms of user posture than either a desktop or clamshell laptop computer, and that is also a point even in favor of its much-scorned and reviled on-screen keyboard, at least for short form text entry.
Certainly the device’s enhanced facility for computing and Web surfing with more relaxed and comfortable body English is one reason why I want an iPad.
For the full Neilsen blog (ant the charts in full size), see:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=27702