Study: 60 Percent Of Adults Switch Screens During The Day

Echoing a 2012 study by Google, Facebook this morning released findings from a new research about multiple device usage. While offering some different figures and percentages it essentially backs up the earlier Google results, which show that people use multiple devices throughout the day and for different purposes.

GfK carried out the research among 2,000 US adults. 

The research found that “more than 60 percent of online adults in the US use at least two devices everyday and almost one quarter use three devices.” It also reported that in excess of 40 percent start on one device and finish on a second or even third one.

Google’s research offered a more dramatic finding: 90 percent of consumers move “sequentially” between different screens during the same day.

The Facebook study determined the more devices owned the more consumers are likely to switch between them: “53 percent of people who own two devices switch between them to complete tasks or activities, and 77 percent of people who have three devices do the same.”

Specific tasks, location and the desire for a larger screen (or keyboard) typically motivated the migration. Facebook added that among screen switchers, “22 percent ended with a tablet and 58 percent with a laptop.” The two common activities across screens were Facebook and email (got that marketers?).

Smartphones are the most frequently and consistently used device throughout the day — on the go, at home and at work:

More than twice as many people in the study use their smartphones at work than their personal laptops, and people are 8X more likely to use their mobile on public transport than their laptop, and 2X more likely than their tablet.

All this underscores what most marketers already know. Mobile devices are now the primary or central devices in consumers’ lives. It’s increasingly important to think about multi-screen campaigns and about attribution methods that take into account this multi-device migration path across screens and, eventually, into the real world.