Never gonna put you down

By Data Team

EARTH is rapidly becoming a planet of the phones (see our leader and briefing this week). Today two billion phones are in use worldwide, and this number is expected to double by the end of the decade. By then nearly 80% of adults will have a device in their pocket with the processing power that would have passed for a supercomputer not too many years ago. To get an idea how much time people will then spend on their smartphones it helps to look at today’s young people: the chart shows that they report much more use during all times of the day than older generations. In total, according to Ofcom, the British telecoms regulator, those aged between 16 to 24 years use their device nearly four hours a day; those aged between 55 to 64 only half as much. When comparing overall screen time however, the smartphone still has some catching up to do to match the allure of longer established technologies like television.