Collaboration tools are seeing a steady increase in adoption among users. This trend was significantly influenced by the global shift to remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As workers transitioned to home-based environments, there was a pressing need for efficient tools to maintain productivity. This change paved the way for embracing non-conventional methods, prompting many to utilize consumer-focused solutions for professional tasks. Larger organizations’ IT/IS departments often found it challenging to swiftly modify their existing systems. As a result, employees took the initiative, driving the momentum to ensure their effectiveness wasn’t hampered. This has amplified the use of collaborative tools, allowing multiple users to work on files or documents simultaneously. It’s noteworthy that employees in the largest and smallest American corporations have adopted these collaborative practices at a distinct pace compared to their counterparts in medium-sized enterprises. In other countries, employees with the largest employers are leading the way. This information is crucial for technology marketers, researchers, and analysts to understand and strategize accordingly.
Modern communication shifts to coalesce around three modes
Communication methods have evolved over the past few decades. While landlines were once predominant, they’ve now taken a backseat. Asynchronous communication, like email, offers the advantage of connecting without simultaneous availability, often more convenient and effective. Text messaging, in particular, has experienced a significant rise, now standing as a leading communication method alongside emails.
Interestingly, while smartphones are labeled “phones,” their initial use leaned more toward texting than calling. However, synchronous communication methods are making a comeback on these devices. Email, text messaging, and phone calls share nearly equal user numbers, showcasing varied preferences among users.
Meanwhile, group communication methods from shared platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack to video meetings hosted by Zoom and Webex have primarily met acceptance among a selected market subset.
Our communication choices often depend on reciprocation, given its two-way nature. As a result, user groups may flock together toward specific communication modes, either adopting new methods or moving away from older ones.
These trends offer invaluable insights for telecom companies, handset manufacturers, and those aiming to understand or influence consumer behaviors. The TUP data provides detailed information about communication preferences across different countries and generations, highlighting the frequency of use for email, text messaging, and phone calls among similar cohorts.
Headcams – cultural precursor to VR headsets?
The growth potential for wearable video cameras, commonly termed “headcams” like GoPro, has been influenced by societal attitudes. Historically, there has been a hesitation to record others without consent, which could limit the broad adoption of such devices. However, cultural perspectives can evolve. Case in point: the widespread acceptance of taking photos and recording videos with smartphones. Furthermore, there has been cultural disapproval against wearables that are too obvious, such as on one’s head.
The rise of content creators on platforms like Instagram and TikTok suggests that the broader public might embrace headcams more in the future. This trend could provide fresh opportunities for tech marketers to promote wearable video cameras to a new generation of users.
In the realm of virtual reality, there are considerations about the cultural reception of VR headset devices like Apple Vision Pro or Meta Quest 3. The positive reception of these devices could inform the way headcams are perceived in the future.
Considering the media’s portrayal, a contemporary version of “The Truman Show” concept, where someone’s life is broadcasted in real-time, isn’t unthinkable, given past experiments with lifecasting in the 90s.
For those analyzing tech trends, these metrics provide a solid foundation: the number of adults across generations and countries using headcams versus smartphones for capturing videos and pictures. This data can provide insights into shifting user behaviors and preferences, and help identify which generation may adopt headcams first and how far they have progressed to date.
Simplicity coalesces with smartphones
The long-term trend towards actively juggling many connected devices has reversed. It has even slid as users consolidate their activities on a smartphone. Furthermore, people use their devices for a narrower range of activities, simplifying their device collection and what they do with them.
Many users shifted to using a notebook and smartphone only to continue their shift using their notebooks less than before. Tablets offered to combine the best of computers and smartphones but instead have fallen into a gap between them. Meanwhile, the majority of people have migrated their activities onto their smartphones. Some of the motivation has been a quest for simplicity, although, in fact, convenience has driven more people. Economics have also played a part, spurred by the many shifts in work in response to the pandemic.
Only ten years ago, the average online adult regularly used as many as four types of devices, most frequently using a home computer, work computer, smartphone, and tablet. Although computers are still in active use, when they are being used, many have been relegated to specific tasks, such as shopping, watching videos, or intensive games.
Long-term printing trends and generational shifts – 2011 to 2023 – US
Most Americans use a printer at home, school, or in a workplace. However, market penetration has sagged over the last five years, and the divide between printer users and non-users has widened.
This TUPdate looks at the long-term trend of printer usage among each generation of Americans. It addresses the question of whether people born around the same time and having grown up with certain technology are increasing or decreasing their printer usage more or less than other generations. The analysis is based on thirteen years of TUP user surveys (TUP 2011 through 2023) as each successive generation grows, evolves, and chooses the technology products and services they use.
X/Twitter’s User Engagement Drops; Meta’s Share Rises
X, formerly Twitter, experienced a decline in its U.S. user base, dropping to an 18% share by August 2023. Conversely, Meta’s user engagement broadened from 73% to 77% between 2021 and 2023, with their new offering, Instagram Threads, securing 11% of users. While most platforms, including Reddit and LinkedIn, maintained their rankings with minor growth, user loyalty metrics highlighted Facebook and Instagram’s consistent user retention. In demographic insights, LinkedIn and Nextdoor attract highly educated users, while generational data indicates Gen Z favors Twitch and Discord. These user behavior trends are crucial for technology marketers crafting targeted strategies. This TUPdate reports on the percentage of online Americans who have visited each of the major social networking sites in 2021 through 2023 and profiles each site’s users by key demographics.
Home entertainment activities among online Americans
Having fun is one of the main activities for which online Americans use their connected devices – smartphones, home computers, or tablets. In the time prior to and since Covid, there has been a shift in which devices online Americans mostly use for entertainment.
This MetaFAQs reports on the percentage of online Americans who regularly use their connected devices for entertainment activities, showing the four-year trend from 2019 through 2022 and drilling down into generational age groups and device types: smartphone, home computers, and tablets.
Gaming trends and user profile
Online adults are deeply engaged in various forms of entertainment, particularly gaming. Over half of American adults use their connected devices for playing games, watching videos, and listening to music, like online adults worldwide. Despite temporary disruption due to the pandemic, the game-playing rate bounced back and grew gradually, indicating its popularity as a staple pastime. This is based on our TUP/Technology User Profile 2022 survey of 13,641 online adults across the US, Germany, UK, Japan, and China, as well as similarly-sized waves from 2019.
Nevertheless, the usage of specialized gaming equipment like game consoles, gaming PCs, or VR headsets has remained limited. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft’s Xbox remain the global market leaders in consoles, each resonating with specific demographic groups and geographical locations. Gaming activities are part of the regular life of most online adults and span all age groups, with younger generations showing a particularly high adoption rate of newer technologies.
Despite a strong focus on gaming, more online adults use their devices for other entertainment activities like watching videos or streaming music. The global demand for gaming, whether casual or immersive, remains substantial, offering growth opportunities. With Apple recently entering the VR/AR/MR headset market, the industry is primed for potential expansion beyond its niche focus. Manufacturers may need to reconsider their current gaming-focused strategies to seize emerging opportunities effectively and broaden their market reach.
This TUPdate looks into the trend around game-playing with connected devices (smartphones, computers, tablets, game consoles), and the use of specialized game equipment (gaming PCs, game consoles). It profiles game-players by their age generation groups, household composition, and presence of children.
Market potential for Apple Vision Pro and VR/AR/MR headsets
Apple has recently unveiled Vision Pro, a product with broader potential for applications well beyond the immersive-game orientation of many initial headsets. The presentation at the launch showcased Vision Pro’s versatility, demonstrating its potential ability to revolutionize a host of activities of many types: entertainment, communication, collaboration, productivity, creativity, and videography. Furthermore, the demo subtly highlighted the potential benefits of Apple’s ecosystem and tighter integration.
Interestingly, gaming and industrial applications, frequently highlighted in the launches of competing VR/AR/MR (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality) headsets, were not included in the Vision Pro demo. This divergence indicates a strategic focus away from a unique niche segment of the market.
Analyzing consumer technology trends requires tracking behaviors, a practice underscored by years of TUP/Technology User Profile research. The mantra that ‘actions speak loudest’ remains as pertinent today as ever. The activities people engage in are the most reliable indicators of consumer technology adoption patterns. It is less about which devices or electronics consumers use; their behaviors are the most important.
An intriguing insight from TUP’s ongoing research is that people switch devices quickly and alter their behavior slowly. Consequently, it becomes crucial to explore the number of people who regularly engage in any given activity, which the research does in detail.
The research also sets out to identify the market size for each of these activities. It quantifies how many people participate in a broad range of these activities.
Furthermore, the report also highlights demographic details, Apple’s brand loyalty, and current VR headset penetration rates. By doing so, the study is expected to offer valuable insights into the potential future for VR/AR/MR headsets such as Apple’s Vision Pro.
Long-term home notebook/laptop trends and current user profile
From 2014 to 2022, there’s been a noticeable shift in device usage among online Americans. Although overall computer usage declined from 89% to 70%, the usage of notebook computers remained steady. While desktop computer usage dropped from 74% to 45%, smartphone usage rose from 64% to 87%, signifying a consistent demand for mobile solutions. Interestingly, despite the surge in smartphone usage, notebook computers maintain their active presence. Generational changes in notebook usage also occurred, with boomers increasing their usage before and tapering after the pandemic, while the Silent + Greatest Generation raised their usage from 28% in 2014 to almost 40% before the pandemic, gently reducing it to 35% in 2022. Millennials maintained the highest usage rates nearly every year.
On a global scale, Apple has the largest share in the active home notebook base, followed by HP and Lenovo. In the U.S., Apple again leads the pack with the highest share. The average age of home notebook users skews slightly older than the average online adult, with Japan hosting the oldest users. Gen Z adults show the lowest usage rate across the U.S., Germany, U.K., and Japan, with most home notebook users falling into the millennial, Gen X, or boomers/Silent generations. Regarding brand and age, Apple has the youngest users globally, while HP has the oldest. Moreover, brands have no significant effect on home notebook activities, with the top three activities being identical across all major brands.
This TUPdate looks at the penetration levels of notebooks/laptops from 2014 to 2022 as well as smartphones and other computer form factors. It profiles users of home notebook/laptop users by their demographics, purchase recency, and activities.