What is the last thing you used your phone to do? Was it to check out the score of a Lakers game? To research reviews on a new restaurant in town? Or to look up nearby towing companies for a friend having car trouble?
If you answered “yes” to any of these, you make up the large majority of “just-in-time” cell users, according to a nationally representative survey by the Pew Internet Project. Conducted between March 15 and April 3, 2012, results were culled from 2,254 adults age 18 and older.
According to the report, 70 percent of all cell phone owners and 86 percent of smartphone users have performed at least one of the following activities in the last 30 days (amounting to 62 percent of the entire adult population):
· Coordinate a meeting or get-together
· Solve an unexpected problem that they or someone else had encountered
· Decide whether to visit a business, such as a restaurant
· Find information to help settle an argument they were having
· Look up a score of a sporting event
· Get up-to-the-minute traffic or public transit information to help find the fastest way to get somewhere
· Get help in an emergency situation
There is no doubt that the mobile industry is on fire right now. Ten years ago I would never have imagined being able to do any of these things with my cell phone, which, at the time was the clunky Nokia 6110, offering only three games (Memory, Logic and Snake, which is, in my opinion, one of the best free cell phone games ever), a calculator, clock, calendar and a currency converter.
As I continue to think about it, there so many possibilities with phones today, it is mind-boggling! To put it in perspective, I’ve come up with a list of all of the things I can do with my phone (I currently use an iPhone 4S) that I never would have anticipated doing a decade ago. They include:
· Check the weekly weather report here in Myrtle Beach or other areas in the U.S.
· Get turn-by-turn directions while driving.
· Ask my phone a question. And have it answer back!
· Download and listen to the new B.o.B album.
· Take a photo and immediately share it on Facebook and Twitter.
· Use the camera feature to check if I had bits of lunch stuck between my teeth.
· Record a video, post it to YouTube and watch it go viral (hopefully!).
· Program my TiVo/DVR from the road.
· Check the stock market.
· Leave myself notes.
· Utilize voice-to-text.
· Pay bills.
· Pay for lunch.
Did I miss anything?
Feel free to add more to the list in the comment section below!
For more information on the Pew study, click here.