Millennial Media has released its latest report looking at the digital habits of Americans across screens - and with an overall 4% increase, the ongoing shift in device dynamics has reached an almost permanent new state of being.
The overall tablet ecosystem has increased to 35 million users - a 13% increase - while smartphones have added 128 million - a 17% increase. The most significant change outside of these healthy growth numbers is the fact that PC-only use has dropped off a cliff, with a 45% decrease to only 40 million.
As far as multiple devices, here's how those combos look:
The report drills down into the specifics of the 141 million cross-screen users, offering a look at how this specific type of usage affects media consumption habits.
The key items are that the amount of time spent on smartphones has officially surpassed PCs, time spent on digital devices has grown 12% year-over-year and that, out of any demographic, women spend the most time on both smartphones and tablets.
So what exactly are people doing on their devices?
Of specific utility to travel marketers is the breakdown of activities on the devices, as it shows what interests are most piqued by these new device landscape.
Travel comes in with a surprisingly high amount of PC usage: 68% of usage comes from PC, while only 11% on tablet and 21% on smartphone.
With the continued shift to cross-screen consumption - and the dramatic drop of 45% of PC-only usage - travel must continue to push for cross-device accessibility. It's likely that the PC will never fully disappear - or at least for half a decade, as we move towards a full replacement - and so travel must also consider what use cases remain valuable to consume on the larger screen real estate of the PC.
And although potential future technologies - such as projected screens or smartphones that also project a larger visual surface - might render this moot, marketers must market to the reality and plan for the future.
For other segments of the travel marketing matrix, there are also opportunities. Food - which would seem ideally suited for both the visual small screen experience and the nature of mobile geolocation - still maintains a majority share of consumption via PC.
The B2B results show that, for many of the companies who sell services to other travel companies, 80% of the people in the category prefer to use PCs. Of course, this is likely due to being at work when exploring work-related purchases. Nonetheless, this means that B2B must continue to play where the attention is and not devote excessive resources to force the market to tablet or mobile.
The full report can be downloaded here.
NB: Many screens image courtesy Shutterstock.