6 ms·

Use of internet, social media, digital devices plateaus in US

79 points by prostoalex 8y ago

atlasunshrugged 8y ago
"The shares of U.S. adults who say they use the internet, use social media, own a smartphone or own a tablet computer are all nearly identical to the shares who said so in 2016. The share who say they have broadband internet service at home currently stands at 65% – nearly identical to the 67% who said this in a survey conducted in summer 2015. And when it comes to desktop or laptop ownership, there has actually been a small dip in the overall numbers over the last two years – from 78% in 2016 to 73% today."
- Jaruzel 8y ago
  It's like mobile phones - everyone who wants one (in the US) has one. You can't keep expecting a rise in usage numbers on anything, as eventually you'll hit maximum usage which is very rarely 100%.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Broadband internet is still not available to large chunks of the population. It’s really three groups those who can’t afford it, thouse who don’t want it, and those who can’t get it.
    - yoz-y 8y ago
      I’d say that most people nowadays do not really need broadband if they have a good enough cell phone plan.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        Lots of people don’t have great cell phone coverage where they live. I’m within 50 miles of a major US city and I have a spotty cell signal. Also data limits/throttling.
    - justtopost 8y ago
      Bingo. I am still struggling with 200k dsl I happily pay 75 a month for. And I consider myself lucky as most of my neighbors are too far from the DSLAM for any connectivity. The rural are the new underclass in america. The amount of hate and incredulity of anyone who does not adopt an urban lifestyle I see on HN is astounding.
kozikow 8y ago
I stopped using Facebook and Twitter. Same as majority of people who did the same, I report being happier and more productive.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  Did you also stop using all Facebook products (Instagram and WhatsApp)? Many of the people I know who are proud of quitting Facebook are happily snapping pictures daily for Instagram or chatting regularly on WhatsApp.
  - moate 8y ago
    They're different use-cases and segments. I'm not on Facebook because I don't need racist screeds from friends of friends (or sometimes soon-to-be-former friends). I am on Instagram because I like dank memes and pictures of food. I'm not trying to stick it to the man, I'm just valuing a different type of content and enjoying the different medium more.
  - j45 8y ago
    Whatsapp serves a different purpose (chat) than Fb/Insta. Potentially viable alternatives (Telegram, Signal, etc) are emerging for Whatsapp compared to none for the other two.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    Quit Facebook two years ago, not using Instagram, using WhatsApp because my mom doesn't use Signal.
  - kozikow 8y ago
    I deleted messenger, Instagram and app, but not WhatsApp. Sadly it's not replaceable yet :(.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      Why not replaceable? iMessage seems like a perfect replacement. Edit: for Android devices, Signal is just as easy to use as WhatsApp.
jp555 8y ago
The coming AR computing epoch will again increase the hours/day we’re staring at (through?) screens.
- atlasunshrugged 8y ago
  Do you mean for work, home, or both? I'm definitely interested to see how AR comes into play in the workplace, for home I think Americans already watch television or are on electronic devices most of their waking hours outside of work (can't find the article but know it was a few hours a day at least) so I'm not sure how much of an impact it'll have there
- titzer 8y ago
  Not for me. I've been steadily reducing my screen time outside of work on purpose. AR/VR sound like a nightmare when I think about how pervasive obscene advertising will become.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Good point about adverts. I’m so used to using ad blockers that I had completely forgotten about them. In the absence of adverts, I can easily believe I will be a heavy user of augmented reality, as I already find the limited form on my phone extremely useful (translation mainly, but I have also used AR as a ruler, and a previous employer’s main app uses it to tell hikers what the nearby hills are called).
    - trophycase 8y ago
      Forgot about advertisements? They are literally everywhere. On clothes, on cars, at the bottom of your shopping cart, at the gas station, on the plane, even in the baggage screening bins.
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Other than branding, there isn’t any on clothes or cars around here, and only very occasionally on cars in the last place I lived (and even then 3:1 in favour of the advert being a hand written private sale offer for the car itself). Likewise, none on shopping carts or in gas stations around here. The only adverts I’ve seen in aircraft (unless you count in-flight menus) are in RyanAir aircraft, which I avoid. None in any baggage screening bins I’ve used either — those have all been plain grey no matter the airport or country. I presume from you saying “gas station” that you’re in America. The EU doesn’t generally have as much advertising.
pweissbrod 8y ago
Explosive user growth in "free" SAAS and social media starts to taper towards a limit. Public companies, pressured to maintain that revenue trajectory, compensate reduced growth by squeezing more value from existing users. This tends to lead towards more obtrusive advertisement, aggressive data collection which, if not carefully implemented, leads to negative publicity and attrition. The struggle in 2018+ is to find what we collectively considers "acceptable privacy", or in other words where is that line between what valuable personal information folks will offer up and what's considered generally creepy.
liftbigweights 8y ago
That's what happens to any product or technology eventually. It's market saturation. Whether it was the TV or walkman or nintendo of the past, or the internet, social media and smartphones today, they all plateau. And then the new tech comes along and then that grows exponentially until it plateaus. Rinse, repeat.
megaman8 8y ago
With this finding, I hope we can get back to developing atom based solutions as opposed to bit solutions (reference avc.com).
chooseaname 8y ago
Was never a heavy social media user, however, Twitter is nice for getting local government updates. FB is just gross.
xte 8y ago
It's hard to blind-trust certain statistics for a simple reason, many use mobile internet when on train/bus, waiting something in line out of their homes etc, however they really use internet at home/work from a PC. In terms of time many may spend more time on a mobile devices not because it's their primary platform but because of today inefficient/poorly organized life etc. Such scenario is hard to track statistically.
kashyapc 8y ago
FWIW, I'm in Western Europe, and "social media"-free (besides occasional use of HN) for about good five plus years. Not that I was a ravenous user before that. Happy to report that overall well-being, reading pleasure and concentration levels have measurably increased. (I "just" need to continue to peacefully sustain it.) PS: Normally, at this hour I would be at my Dutch class; but tonight it was "interim feedback day". And it was done in 40 minutes, instead of the regular 3 & 1/2 hour lesson; hence I'm coasting here. :-)
siruncledrew 8y ago
What I find interesting is that tablet use increased slightly from 51% to 53% over 2 years, while tablet sales across the industry are on a decline [1] with the exception of a few companies such as Apple and Huawei. This wasn't addressed in the Pew survey, but (purely speculation here), I wonder if it's being driven by an increase in older people using tablets rather than laptops/desktops, due to the larger screen sizes tablets offer over a smartphone with similar capabilities. Anecdotally, I've started to see older people (in their mid-40s to 60s) bring iPads to meetings instead of laptops to take notes, email, and browse the web. [1] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44191918 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44191918

79 points by prostoalex 8y ago

"The shares of U.S. adults who say they use the internet, use social media, own a smartphone or own a tablet computer are all nearly identical to the shares who said so in 2016. The share who say they have broadband internet service at home currently stands at 65% – nearly identical to the 67% who said this in a survey conducted in summer 2015. And when it comes to desktop or laptop ownership, there has actually been a small dip in the overall numbers over the last two years – from 78% in 2016 to 73% today."

Jaruzel 8y ago
It's like mobile phones - everyone who wants one (in the US) has one. You can't keep expecting a rise in usage numbers on anything, as eventually you'll hit maximum usage which is very rarely 100%.
- Retric 8y ago
  Broadband internet is still not available to large chunks of the population. It’s really three groups those who can’t afford it, thouse who don’t want it, and those who can’t get it.
  - yoz-y 8y ago
    I’d say that most people nowadays do not really need broadband if they have a good enough cell phone plan.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Lots of people don’t have great cell phone coverage where they live. I’m within 50 miles of a major US city and I have a spotty cell signal. Also data limits/throttling.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    Bingo. I am still struggling with 200k dsl I happily pay 75 a month for. And I consider myself lucky as most of my neighbors are too far from the DSLAM for any connectivity. The rural are the new underclass in america. The amount of hate and incredulity of anyone who does not adopt an urban lifestyle I see on HN is astounding.

kozikow 8y ago

I stopped using Facebook and Twitter. Same as majority of people who did the same, I report being happier and more productive.

mdorazio 8y ago
Did you also stop using all Facebook products (Instagram and WhatsApp)? Many of the people I know who are proud of quitting Facebook are happily snapping pictures daily for Instagram or chatting regularly on WhatsApp.
- moate 8y ago
  They're different use-cases and segments. I'm not on Facebook because I don't need racist screeds from friends of friends (or sometimes soon-to-be-former friends). I am on Instagram because I like dank memes and pictures of food. I'm not trying to stick it to the man, I'm just valuing a different type of content and enjoying the different medium more.
- j45 8y ago
  Whatsapp serves a different purpose (chat) than Fb/Insta. Potentially viable alternatives (Telegram, Signal, etc) are emerging for Whatsapp compared to none for the other two.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  Quit Facebook two years ago, not using Instagram, using WhatsApp because my mom doesn't use Signal.
- kozikow 8y ago
  I deleted messenger, Instagram and app, but not WhatsApp. Sadly it's not replaceable yet :(.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    Why not replaceable? iMessage seems like a perfect replacement. Edit: for Android devices, Signal is just as easy to use as WhatsApp.

jp555 8y ago

The coming AR computing epoch will again increase the hours/day we’re staring at (through?) screens.

atlasunshrugged 8y ago
Do you mean for work, home, or both? I'm definitely interested to see how AR comes into play in the workplace, for home I think Americans already watch television or are on electronic devices most of their waking hours outside of work (can't find the article but know it was a few hours a day at least) so I'm not sure how much of an impact it'll have there
titzer 8y ago
Not for me. I've been steadily reducing my screen time outside of work on purpose. AR/VR sound like a nightmare when I think about how pervasive obscene advertising will become.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Good point about adverts. I’m so used to using ad blockers that I had completely forgotten about them. In the absence of adverts, I can easily believe I will be a heavy user of augmented reality, as I already find the limited form on my phone extremely useful (translation mainly, but I have also used AR as a ruler, and a previous employer’s main app uses it to tell hikers what the nearby hills are called).
  - trophycase 8y ago
    Forgot about advertisements? They are literally everywhere. On clothes, on cars, at the bottom of your shopping cart, at the gas station, on the plane, even in the baggage screening bins.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Other than branding, there isn’t any on clothes or cars around here, and only very occasionally on cars in the last place I lived (and even then 3:1 in favour of the advert being a hand written private sale offer for the car itself). Likewise, none on shopping carts or in gas stations around here. The only adverts I’ve seen in aircraft (unless you count in-flight menus) are in RyanAir aircraft, which I avoid. None in any baggage screening bins I’ve used either — those have all been plain grey no matter the airport or country. I presume from you saying “gas station” that you’re in America. The EU doesn’t generally have as much advertising.

pweissbrod 8y ago

Explosive user growth in "free" SAAS and social media starts to taper towards a limit. Public companies, pressured to maintain that revenue trajectory, compensate reduced growth by squeezing more value from existing users. This tends to lead towards more obtrusive advertisement, aggressive data collection which, if not carefully implemented, leads to negative publicity and attrition. The struggle in 2018+ is to find what we collectively considers "acceptable privacy", or in other words where is that line between what valuable personal information folks will offer up and what's considered generally creepy.

liftbigweights 8y ago

That's what happens to any product or technology eventually. It's market saturation. Whether it was the TV or walkman or nintendo of the past, or the internet, social media and smartphones today, they all plateau. And then the new tech comes along and then that grows exponentially until it plateaus. Rinse, repeat.

megaman8 8y ago

With this finding, I hope we can get back to developing atom based solutions as opposed to bit solutions (reference avc.com).

chooseaname 8y ago

Was never a heavy social media user, however, Twitter is nice for getting local government updates. FB is just gross.

xte 8y ago

It's hard to blind-trust certain statistics for a simple reason, many use mobile internet when on train/bus, waiting something in line out of their homes etc, however they really use internet at home/work from a PC. In terms of time many may spend more time on a mobile devices not because it's their primary platform but because of today inefficient/poorly organized life etc. Such scenario is hard to track statistically.

kashyapc 8y ago

FWIW, I'm in Western Europe, and "social media"-free (besides occasional use of HN) for about good five plus years. Not that I was a ravenous user before that. Happy to report that overall well-being, reading pleasure and concentration levels have measurably increased. (I "just" need to continue to peacefully sustain it.) PS: Normally, at this hour I would be at my Dutch class; but tonight it was "interim feedback day". And it was done in 40 minutes, instead of the regular 3 & 1/2 hour lesson; hence I'm coasting here. :-)

siruncledrew 8y ago

What I find interesting is that tablet use increased slightly from 51% to 53% over 2 years, while tablet sales across the industry are on a decline [1] with the exception of a few companies such as Apple and Huawei. This wasn't addressed in the Pew survey, but (purely speculation here), I wonder if it's being driven by an increase in older people using tablets rather than laptops/desktops, due to the larger screen sizes tablets offer over a smartphone with similar capabilities. Anecdotally, I've started to see older people (in their mid-40s to 60s) bring iPads to meetings instead of laptops to take notes, email, and browse the web. [1] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44191918 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44191918