The Truth Is In The Pocket - Now New Zealand statistic is repeated in USA by Pew

Pew has just released a MAGNIFICENT bit of research. It is as far as I can see, the most thorough deep, massive consumer behavior survey ever conducted in any one country, about mobile behavior. They have 3 separate Pew research projects combined into the survey findings, including - as far as I know the first time ever - a week-long period when a panel of 1,600 smartphone owning adults did TWO surveys PER DAY for the week, about HOW and WHY they use their phones. Its incredible. Seven pages of findings online, all free, go read it all. This is THE BEST data of this depth ever reported anywhere. (Don't just read the first page, it gets really good pages 3-4-5). Truly valuable insights, thank you Pew for the excellent research and releasing all that info into the public domain.

Now, its a survey of smartphone owners (so remember, as the USA now is at 64% of adults owning a smartphone - by those fresh April 2015 Pew numbers - this is behavior by the affluent middle class and those one third, mostly poor, who can't afford smartphones and still have dumbphones, their behavior isn't quite like this. But this is now just about 2/3 of the total US adult population. Secondly, yes its above 18 year olds, so we know young people are very addicted to tech and youth behavior is missing. Even so, adults, in USA, only smartphone users, it is the best deepest most thorough research I have ever seen on a national scale on one survey sample (or actually combining findings from 3 surveys but by the same organization, over roughly the same period of time, released now at the same time as one study).

THE TRUTH IS IN THE POCKET

I will want to come back for many other fascinating findings, but today I wanted to just start on one point. I first found research about this peculiar new change in human behavior, I like to call 'The Truth Is In The Pocket;' phenomenon in 2012. The research was by Vodafone in the country and reported that among all New Zealanders, 38% had been in a situation of an argument, debate or bet, that they had gone to their pocket and Googled the fact, or gone to Wikipedia etc. To resolve an argument, we now go to the pocket. Why, because... The Truth Is In The Pocket. And I said that while that finding was first noticed in New Zealand, it no doubt was a universal trend and that it was one of the biggest changes in human behavior, why? Because it changes the very relationship with human beings and facts. Humans and information. Humans and the truth. If we get into an argument about say who won the championship in whatever sport that particular year, or whatever fact, we now no longer are stuck in an endless pingpong of yelling and heated argument, we now quietly go into our pockets, and Google it, or check it on Wikipedia. Argument is settled!

That was just over one in 3 in New Zealand three YEARS ago, but NZ is of course one of the more advanced countries in mobile, as is much of the Asia-Pacific region like Australia, Singapore, Taiwan etc. (even as a fresh Australian survey found that local Australian tech executives felt their country was lagging haha, they should go visit the USA or Canada or Belgium to see whose really lagging). Oh, the relevant part in the Vodafone NZ study - it was among all New Zealand mobile owners, not just smartphone owners.

So fast forward 3 years, now we have fresh Pew study, and as far as I've seen, its the first time that same question was asked in another country. And while its only asked of smatphone users, the result was ... drumroll ... 53% of adult US smartphone owners. So across all US adults, thats 34%. Essentially similar finding now in the USA, as New Zealand had three years ago (once AGAIN proving the USA is a laggard in mobile but thats another story, the Pew study is full of such findings by the way).

So. First. Put this thought into your mind because now we have two countries reporting it. More than one in three adults have already experienced the situation, where they are in an argument, a debate, a discussion, a dispute, a pub quiz or whatever, and they decided to find the truth by going to their pocket. The Truth Is In Our Pocket. This changes the relationship between humans and facts, humans and information. We learn that all truth lies there, in the pocket. So the next time we need to find a place, we feel a pain and are worried about our health, or we want to do a price check or we are worried the taxi driver is deliberately driving in a circle to make our faxi fare higher, we now know: The Truth Is In Our Pocket. Yes, more than 1 in 3 New Zealanders, just over 1 in 3 Americans already have done this. No doubt its over half of Europeans and probably 3 in 4 Japanese and Koreans who have also done this. But yes, this is a train that only goes one way. The very relationship between humans and information is now changing. Previously that info rested 'somewhere' and we had to go to the library to find out, or wait until we got home, read it in the telephone book or looked up a map or more recently, went online. But with mobile, The Truth Is In Our Pocket.

I have noticed it myself in my public speaking. I often like to do an audience quiz and give away a few prizes like say my latest Almanac (its coming in a few weeks, if you order the 2014 edition now, you get both for hte same low price, and don't worry that the website shows an older edition, I just haven't had time to go update that page, of course I ship the latest edition always). So I ask some question of some fact or stat about mobile. And now increasingly the winner is someone who Googled it right on the spot, in the audience. And I apprecaite that. Because.... The Truth Is In The Pocket.

I said in 2012 that this is an awesome finding and it will change humankind (here is a slide set of me at the MMA Forum in Vietnam talking about it, see slide 4). Now we have the first instance of that same finding by a separate research body, in another major country. And the finding is consistent. This is a great research finding and that alone makes the Pew study released just now a magnificent read. Except there are TONS more of excellent insights coming out of it. I will return to this topic soon for more. Go read the Pew Study now (and read all of it not just the first page)..

Comments

[John Phamlore]

@Tomi,

The Pew survey repeatedly stated that young people were using their smartphones, if it wasn't an immediate need such as finding directions, to avoid boredom and to avoid interacting with others.

If the theory is that companies give away for free what they wish to devalue, the conclusion is that what has been devalued by say Google has been exactly the general trivia knowledge you just extolled. It's value is now zero, the exact opposite of what you are saying.

The trend is actually towards more consolidation, more centralization, more importance in specific and detailed knowledge, especially to what is considered to have quality. If you learn some piece of software was contracted out to a third party it will in all likelihood be horribly written if not totally unusable, as countless government software projects have found to their sorrow.

As Japan and Korea found, and others have followed, the quickest way to technical excellence is not to disperse but to physically jam everyone together into one megacity, whether it be Tokyo or Seoul, or now the San Francisco Bay Area or New York City.

The Pew study is actually saying that what is valuable is low data intensive services such as online banking and brief data queries. It repeatedly says people in the United States are having problems running up against data plan limits and that the plans are relatively expensive compared to income. Now one might say regulation in the United States is primitive compared to much of the advanced world, but then that destroys whatever value the Pew study has in generalizing about smartphone usage doesn't it since it was taken in an outlier country?

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi John

First, I don't really understand why you picked on the 'young people' because those things you mentioned, directions, boredom, were also relevant to all users. And obviously the biggest use was SMS and the biggest reason why was to coordinate meetings.

Now. Purpose to devalue? I am pretty sure Google has no intention of devaluing information, quite on the contrary, they find enormous value out of the data they transmit and sell tons of ads and targeted search and increasingly will sell other services too out of that info. No, I don't buy that at all. While its upfront payment model may change - we don't have to buy a 36 volume Encyclopedia for $1,000 to occasionally find a 'valuable' tidbit of data, Google makes tons more than all encyclopedia companies COMBINED offering that same type of service now via the web, both mobile and PC. I don't agree at all.

As to quality... whether its quality of info, or of entertainemnt or of convenience, yes, there is clearly a market for ever more of that, and modern means, not just digital means, have increased the up-side of that. So the typical Arabian oil billionaire who books a rock star to come sing at the kid's wedding, that sort of thing. Same is true here in our world. That Forecast I just released today. Fifteen years ago it wasn't practical for me to do such a project and find a way to sell it. I would have had to get someone like Informa or Ovum or Gartner to 'hire me' to write it, and they would have sold it, mostly in old-fashioned way, paper-bound, shipped via Fedex to their clients and they'd pay me a cut of the sales or perhaps a one-off writing/research fee. Today I can sell direct to my customers and deliver faster and better info, and be paid more directly to me, while the price of the research is less. Win-win-win (but the middle-man is cut out )

Now to the problems the Pew study found, yes, I will come back to those in a follow-up blog. Has nothing to do with The Truth Is In The Pocket haha. But valid points yes, and makes me want to tear my eyes out, reading that. HALF of US mobile phone owners have experienced network signal drop-outs and one in ten REGULARLY. Their horrid networks are only getting worse. Gosh, were you here on the blog when I had that famous exchange with the President of the CTIA, Steve Largent? That was epic haha, but gosh, its gotten WORSE.. I am so so so ashamed on behaof of our industry for those findings in that Pew survey and I WILL return to those themes. I won't sit still and shut up about such glaring failures of the US telecoms industry to serve their customers (but what else is new).

As to 'outlier counrty' fair point but this is CONSUMER behavior research. That is pretty universal. Everybody needs a job, everybody wants to hail a taxi, everybody has a need for a doctor, etc. Those were very universal findings and the only thing I would say at this point, the Industrialized World will be AHEAD of those stats, so you can take the stats and bump them UP if you think of rich world, and the Emerging World will SOON find similar uses as their smartphone penetration rates approach the current US levels. Thus its a pretty nice 'mid-point' study of the globe one could say. A South Africa, Malaysia, Colombia would already today be very close to those consumer behavior stats today.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[abdul muis]

Smartphone use rises in US – but many owners struggle with cost, says study

Research shows 64% of Americans own a smartphone but 23% run into money problems and 15% run out of mobile data
.... [more at the link bellow]

from:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/01/smartphone-users-us-end-contract-due-to-cost-pew-data

[notzed]

Too true; i've done it and i don't even have a mobile phone.

At least, it's a "view" of the truth. Google gives different results for me depending on which machine I'm using and whether i'm logged in to one of their other services or not. It's frustrating and annoying - and disturbing.