Where would we be without mobile?
It’s a daunting thought I know. One almost too unbearable to think about. Is that the 21 year old in me saying that? Or is it the consumer and creator of information in me?
I’d like to argue that it’s not just the adolescent in me, as my Grandad would say. It is quite possibly the truth of the world we live in today.
With ever more hectic schedules, deadlines more demanding, responses to situations and messages required far more instantly (and that’s without taking in to consideration how active we’ve become as consumers and our desire to respond to the media and produce our own content) you wonder how we’d cope without mobile now.
Well, let me try and put it in to perspective.
The total population stands around 7.2 billion. There are just over 3 billion active internet users and almost 3.7 billion unique mobile users. That’s give-or-take half the world actively living in the same digital realm.
In Europe alone, approximately 70% of the population are active internet users with 57.3 million of the 64.1 million UK citizens actively using the internet. 38 million of us have active social media accounts and 32 million of these accounts are accessed via a mobile. So again, I repeat, we are living online!
For those of you reading this thinking, ‘that’s not me. I haven’t been absorbed by the digital realm’…let me share this with you.
In an average day, a UK citizen spends 4 hours on the internet, accessed through a computer, and 1.9 hours on the web, accessed via a mobile device. The average daily use of social media in the UK stands at 2hrs 13m.
And if that doesn’t shock you enough, on average the UK now spends more time on media devices per day (8 hours 41 minutes) than we do sleeping (8 hours 21 minutes).
The capabilities of the digital world accessed via mobile mean – amongst many things – that we are able to connect with whoever we want, whenever we want, from wherever in the world that we want. Whether it’s a phone call, text message, whatsapp, snapchat, facebook message, linkedin connection, skype…I could go on for a while here.
It also means that we are in demand a hell of a lot more than we were only a decade ago. There is no ‘off’ switch as we have access to email, social accounts, PDF files, spreadsheets, mobile banking…all from the device that sits in our back pocket (#BendGate). There is no excuse for not emailing back, texting back, reading and approving that all-important document.
But there are oh-so-many perks to living digitally. Immediate feedback and in-depth analytics of how far your video of a cat sliding down the stairs has gone. Who’s seen it, who’s liked, shared, unliked it. Being able to find that perfect outfit online Thursday night and having it delivered to the office the next day, just in time for the weekend. Paying for your Costa with your iPhone (thank you Apple Pay!). Reserving Friday night’s table for 2 at the local Italian. The opportunities are endless – or at the very least, a million and one more than life without mobile.
So I conclude, where would we be without mobile?
Behind schedule, behind the trends, behind the next generation. So here’s to the digital world, and loving every minute of it!
Sources:
We Are Social
Mail Online