Digitally Distracted

By Gerald McGrew on October 24, 2012 in Other

I’ve been on holidays up north, trying to work and play while enjoying the absence of a decent Internet connection. One of the books I read up there is about a chap who goes back to 1958, where he marvels at all the extra time he has in an era without the Internet. And how often he gets lost without GPS.

It got me thinking: just how much time do we spend online now?

As is so often the case, trying to find current online stats on anything is just about impossible. So when I found some on the Public Relations Institute of Australia website, I felt confident that the PR crowd wouldn’t bullshit on topical stats in order to generate interest.

The big stat is that over 16 million Aussies are now online. With a population just over 22 million, that means that 6 million people out there have no idea what’s happening on the Internet. It also means that about 4.5 million of those same people are young-uns and probably haven’t realised Justin Bieber is shit yet. I personally wish this was the test for Internet access. Bieber or bandwidth – you can choose one. Otherwise go outside and play; you’ve got your entire teenage years to let Facebook make you feel bad.

About 20% of us have a tablet computer now, and that’s forecast to double by 2013. With laptops getting cheaper and smaller, and tablet sales going through the roof, let’s spare a thought for the humble desktop computer. Its disturbingly beige casing, keyboard full of hair and crumbs, and sweat-stained mouse is on the highly endangered list. And if it’s not already in the spare room next to the dusty exercise bike and unpacked boxes from your last house move, it soon will be.

Almost half of the population over 16 years old owns a smartphone now too. To be honest, I thought it would be more than that. Even taking into account Queenslanders, people from Dubbo and my dad, surely more than half the country over the informal drinking age of 16 now have a phone that demands they constantly frig with it. I call bullshit on this stat.

Here is far more believable statistic: good old email is still the thing we prioritise over all other online activity.

Internet fashions may come and go in the form of Twitter, or whichever online retailer is flogging shoes cheaply at the time, yet email remains the faithful denim jeans in our digital wardrobe. 71% of us check it at the start of the day and nearly 50% check again as their last online act before heading off to bed.

And we love Facebook, more than pretty much every country in the world. Aussie users visit the site on average 16 times a week, and 42 percent of the entire population visits it each month. The truth here is that there are a lot of people who check it relative rarely. There’s also an equal amount who can’t stay off the thing, particularly on their mobiles. Checking 16 times a day is the vogue for them, and I can’t see those numbers decreasing any time soon.

They used to worry about too much television turning our minds to mush. Between reality television and reality websites I suspect we’re almost there!