It’s official, we’d rather not speak to each other. Head down, umbrella up, we’d rather use text and data than actually talk. The research, by Ofcom, reveals that 58% of people sent texts daily whilst 47% of people make a phone call every day. The average Brit sends 50 texts per week, which works out at just over 7 every day.
Now two fifths of UK adults have a smartphone and the same proportion say that it’s the most important device for accessing the internet.
What’s happening? Chief Commercial Officer at Carphone Warehouse, Graham Stapleton, tells us..
The fact that text messages and mobile internet are becoming greater priorities for customers is reflected in the way tariffs have evolved in the last year. Data packages have exploded in the last 12 months. The shift can also be seen in the handsets that we see coming come to market. Manufacturers are investing tens of millions in the innovation of screens, connectivity and operating systems, all of which relate to customer demand. Quite frankly, a phone call is the same whether you’re calling from one handset or another.
Have we all forgotten how to talk to each other? Or do we just now assume that everyone else would rather communicate via text too? What do you think?
Oh, and apologies for the title.. Should we? Should we? Oh, go on then….
Come on, join in, you know you want to. 🙂
Link – Ofcom
Being slightly pedantic, it’s surely not a fair comparison. Each phone call you make will contain many exchanges of words, but would only have counted as one call. Where a conversation held over multiple SMS would count as many SMS, even more so if there were SMS over the max length of an SMS.
Perhaps people are just sending longer texts? Perhaps people are using txt spk less 🙂