Only one per cent of teens use their mobiles 'regularly' to make calls, says survey
Friday, February 14, 2014 @ 6:50 PM
CHILDREN as young as eight are competent using the internet, only three in 10 teens use their mobile telephones to actually telephone anyone and an identical number leaves theirs switched on 24 hours a day, says a recent report.
Taking data from 1,800 questionnaires aimed at young people aged between 11 and 14, the research found that at this age, 76 per cent regularly used the free text-messaging service WhatsApp and 65 per cent joined in group chats and file-sharing via this system.
On the whole, they prefer instant messaging systems such as WhatsApp to traditional social network sites such as Tuenti – aimed at teens and young adults – or MySpace, Twitter or Facebook.
This is because they can have group conversations and share photos and videos, according to the report.
And only 29 per cent regularly use their mobiles to make phone calls, whilst 25 per cent never do and 45 per cent do so 'occasionally'.
This effectively means only one per cent of teens and pre-teens regularly make telephone calls from their mobiles, whilst for the rest, it is almost exclusively a tool for messages, games and internet use.
One in three admitted that they had installed applications, or 'Apps', which were able to to access their personal data, whilst 16 per cent had no idea whether or not the 'geo-localisation' function – which records and broadcasts where the user is in the world – was activated on their handsets and 9.5 per cent had this activated at all times.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com