If you own a smartphone or tablet, you are not alone. A new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has found that 50 percent of American adults now own at least one of those two device types.
The survey also found that one-third of users access news stories and video clips on their devices at least one time per week.
The study polled 9,500 adults from late June through early August 2012. According to researchers, the survey has “major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for.”
That finding is largely based on the fact that 20 percent of the mobile news users surveyed said they paid for at least one online subscription in the last year.
Tablet and smartphone news viewing could actually be really good news for online publications. One-third of the users who said they watched videos or read news on their devices also said it led them to get more news while at their desktop or notebook devices.
The Pew Research survey also found that one-third of mobile users also have print-only subscriptions and plan to keep them into the foreseeable future.
The Pew group found that Google Android users are gaining the most momentum when it comes to online consumption of materials. According to polling numbers, 50percent of users reported owning an Apple iPad; that number is way down from last years 81 percent of respondents. Google, however, has managed to grab a 48 percent response level when asked if respondents owned a tablet and which OS they were using for that device.
