TORONTO – Canadians still love their smart phones, tablets and e-readers, but are spending less time using them, according to a new study by Ipsos Reid.
The spring 2012 wave of Mobil-ology, a study of the mobile market in Canada, found that that device usage has stabilized over time. On average, Canadians report using their smart phones 222 times per month, tablets 115 times per month, and e-readers 38 times per month.
But the time spent on each device has declined. On a typical weekday, respondents in spring 2012 reported spending 2.8 hours per day on their smart phone, down significantly from the 3.3 hours they reported in spring 2011, Wave 1 of the Mobil-ology study. Significant drops were also reported for hours spent on tablets (2.4 hours down from 3.2 hours) and e-readers (1.8 hours down from 2.1 hours) over the same period.
In addition, the survey also found that the frequency at which smart phone and tablet users download new apps and delete old apps previously loaded on their devices.
Ipsos Reid SVP Mary Beth Barbour said that while seasonality was initially suspected as a cause of this reported behaviour, further analysis suggests a potential shift in usage patterns.
“Such changes further support the notion that Canadians are maturing as mobile users,” she said in the report’s news release. “Decreases may be due in part to users settling in with their device and usage levels normalizing as the novelty wears off and users are in less of an exploratory phase. Further, shifts may also be related to the expansion of the user base beyond the ‘techies’ and early adopters to the broader population who may be less active users.”
Findings are based on two waves of research, (the first in February 2011 and the second in March/April 2012), conducted among approximately 2,000 adult residents of Canada via the Ipsos opinions online panel.
