Brits Prefer To Text Rather Than Call, Says Ofcom

Brits now prefer to send texts to friends and family rather than call them, according to a new Ofcom report.

The watchdog’s Communications Market Report 2012 asked what methods people used at least once a day to communicate with loved ones and found that text messages and social media were rapidly becoming more popular than more traditional forms of contact.

For the first time ever, fewer calls are being made on both mobile and fixed connections, with the overall time spend talking on phones decreasing by five percent in 2011.

Don’t call me back

The average UK consumer now sends 50 texts every week, a figure which has more than doubled in the last three years, and 150 billion texts were sent in the UK last year. Brits now spend an average of almost 90 minutes per week on social networks and email or using their mobile to access the Internet, confirming an Ofcom report released earlier this year that concerns about the Internet were easing.

The findings reflect changing habits of consumers resulting from increased ownership of mobile-connected devices such as smartphones and tablets. More than 92 percent of people in the UK now own a mobile phone, of which 39 percent have a smartphone, whilst 11 percent of UK households have a tablet – a figure which Ofcom expects to grow. Households on average now own three types of Internet-connected device, with 15 percent owning six or more.

The report also found that eight out of ten people had access to the Internet in the first quarter of this year, an increase from the figure of 71 percent reported in the 2010 report. The largest increase was among 65-74 year olds, a demographic which has been targeted by a number of campaigns to increase Internet literacy.

Last year’s report revealed that Brits were hooked to their smartphones, with 27 percent of adults and 60 percent of teens admitting they were ‘highly addicted’ and that such devices were blurring the distinction between work and home life.

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