American teens, (so-called “Millennial teens”) spend more than twice as much time per day with mobile devices than they do with conventional TV or desktop computers. That may be no surprise to anyone, but it’s still sobering for marketers trying to reach this audience.
That data comes from a broad new survey of 16- to 19-year-olds by the Refuel agency (n=684) about their digital lives and attitudes.
The study looked at a wide range of teen behavior around media, shopping and digital content. As one might expect from the data above, smartphones were ranked as teens’ most important device, while TV was the least important of the choices offered:
Smartphones — 55 percent
Laptop — 18 percent
Tablet — 12 percent
Music player — 8 percent
TV — 7 percent
The fact that TV was so little valued by teens is an ominous sign, not only for TV hardware makers, but also for cable companies, and it suggests the cord-cutting trend will accelerate as these teens become independent buyers of services as renters and homeowners in the future.
Teen smartphone shopping behavior looks very much like adult smartphone shopping behavior, with price comparisons, product research and reviews topping the list of actions. The survey also found that 33 percent of teens reported making a mobile purchase (categories of mobile purchases were not discussed). This bodes well for mobile commerce, provided retailers can simplify and improve the checkout process.
YouTube was the social media site that teens devoted the most time to, according to the survey, followed by Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram.
Facebook Messenger was the most popular messaging app. Instagram and Snapchat were tied for a close second. The question that produced the chart above was, “Which of the following sites or apps do you spend most of your time on?” The one that generated the data immediately below was, “Which messaging app do you often use on a regular basis?”
One of the other noteworthy findings was that nearly half of teens (49 percent) try at least four new apps per month. The top app discovery methods cited were: 1) a friend/family recommendation; 2) social media recommendations; and 3) an online video.
The full report is available for download (after registration) here.
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