I was curious to see how my millennial peers interacted with their mobile devices, so I created a short survey and sent it out to fellow students at my school, The University of Texas at Austin.
The survey collected information from about 100 undergraduate, full-time students ages 18-22. Keep in mind that the results aren’t statistically significant, but they are certainly interesting and telling of this demographic. Without further ado, let’s get into the results.
Survey results
100% of those surveyed identified as either IOS or Android users, with 95% as IOS users and 5% as Android users.
When asked how many times per day students look at their mobile devices, 81% chose “too many times to count,” 17% went with the moderate option of “throughout the day but not excessively” and a mere 2% chose “only when it rings.”
Students were asked to list their top three most used apps (in a non-specific order.) Social media apps were the most popular answer choice by a landslide. Snapchat was listed by 63% of respondents, Facebook by 55% and Instagram by 55% as well. Twitter, however, was listed by only 13% of respondents, coming in as the least popular social media site among those surveyed. Check out the word cloud which reflects the results:
When asked about their guilty pleasure apps, the answers were all over the board. The most popular categories were social media, entertainment and shopping. Answers varied per person and per category with few apps being repeated. The exception to this was with social media apps, as at least one was included in each respondent’s set of three.
Finally, I asked respondents about preloaded apps on their mobile devices. I was curious to see if this demographic knew what preloaded apps were, and if so, how they were perceived. The majority of respondents found them “useful” (79%) and only 2% of the almost 100 respondents did not know what preloaded apps were.
It’s clear that these millennials are very much addicted to mobile screens, various favorite apps, and highly active on social networks. Mobile devices are staples for this demographic and for the majority, within an arm’s reach 24 hours a day.
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