Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, September 16, 2021
Age, education, and teamwork favor working from home
Those who are working from home are demographically distinct from those who are not. We found many demographic differences in our survey of 13,918 respondents across the US, Germany, UK, Japan, and China for TUP/Technology User Profile 2021.
Workers working from home are younger than workers not working from home and those not employed outside the home. Those working from home are also more likely to have a partner and higher educational attainment.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
TUP/Technology User Profile 2020 spans a broad range of technology products and services, about the full range of users, including their activities, and all unified by a central, integrated dataset. The comprehensive research results can be viewed through a number of topical lenses, and from there, can be further customized or drilled down into.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, December 19, 2019
Smartwatch and fitness band penetration tapers to 2016 levels
The race for the wrist has settled into a larger-than-niche and less-than-majority position. Over the last three years, the share of online Americans using at least one smartwatch has grown from one in six to one in five, only to settle back to the one in six level. This is based on TUP/Technology User Profile 2019 survey of 8,060 online adults in the US, and from the prior three annual waves.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, March 23, 2018
The number of connected adults continues to rise in the US. Based on our TUP/Technology User Profile 2017 wave, there are 212.6 million adults who regularly connect to the Internet using a PC, mobile phone, tablet, or game console. This number is up 18.9 million from the 193.8 million adults we reported in our TUP 2013 wave.
While some of the increase has come from a growing adult population, the share of adults actively connected has also grown, due in large part to the increasing use of smartphones. The use of tablets such as Apple’s iPad has also expanded since 2013, although declined somewhat in 2017.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, March 13, 2018
Age matters when it comes to voice assistant use, and it’s overly simplistic to say that they’re mostly being used by younger adults. Yes, there’s a strong age difference between active voice assistant users, former users, and those who’ve never even given one a try.
Age by Recency of Voice Assistant Use
And yes, otherwise-connected adults that have never used a voice assistant are older than active users by a decade. The average age of a connected adult who has never used a voice assistant is 51.7 years. By comparison, the average age for active voice assistant users, those who’ve used one at least once within the last 90 days, is 41.6 years.
However, in this time of experimentation and users finding their own voices, younger adults are disproportionately former voice assistant users. They used a voice assistant within the last year and haven’t used one since.
This is based on results from the MetaFacts Voice User Profile (VUP) survey conducted in February 2018. The results report on active usage, which is a practical measure to contrast with the promised potential of what voice assistants may or may not be able to do. Our TUP 2017 results show a similar pattern – the novelty effect. Older Millennials have the highest active voice assistant usage rates. This group of 28-36 year-olds also shows the steepest dropoff between recent and less-recent use. This novelty effect is also prevalent among younger millennials (age 18-27) as their usage rate drops.
Voice Assistant Usage Recency by Age
Observations
As a long-time tech analyst, I’ve seen many technologies go through fits and starts as they either reach broader adoption or settle back into their niches. Apple’s Macs had PlainTalk 25 years ago, yet the voice recognition and speech synthesis system never reached widespread regular use. Still, the earliest adopters found ways to use these early voice assistants, such as dictation. Apple’s Siri arguably brought usable voice assistants into handy use for a much broader audience. The most-recent entries from Amazon and Microsoft to Google have brought a lot of heat and light to the category, although it’s still too early to declare voice assistants as be mainstream. There are many challenges ahead for makers of voice assistant systems and listening devices. It’s hard enough to encourage users to experiment with a voice assistant. It’s even harder to get users to continue using the technology after the novelty wears off. Many who have tried have given up, disappointed or daunted that their voice assistant hasn’t lived up their, er, its words.
Source
The information in this MetaFAQs is based on a survey of 7,410 online adults in mid-2017 as part of the MetaFacts Technology User Profile (TUP) study and 525 online adults during February 2018 as part of the MetaFacts Voice User Profile (VUP) study. The TUP and VUP study universes included a representative sample of online adults, with active voice assistant users, former voice assistant users, as well as consumers who have never used a voice assistant.
About MetaFAQs
MetaFAQs are answers to frequently asked questions about technology users. The research results showcase the TUP/Technology User Profile study, MetaFacts’ survey of a representative sample of online adults profiling the full market’s use of technology products and services. The current wave of TUP is TUP/Technology User Profile 2020, which is TUP’s 38th annual.
Current subscribers may use the comprehensive TUP datasets to obtain even more results or tailor these results to fit their chosen segments, services, or products. As subscribers choose, they may use the TUP inquiry service, online interactive tools, or analysis previously published by MetaFacts.
On request, interested research professionals can receive complimentary updates through our periodic newsletter. These include MetaFAQs – brief answers to frequently asked questions about technology users – or TUPdates – analysis of current and essential technology industry topics. To subscribe, contact MetaFacts.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, January 16, 2018
The number of actively connected seniors continues to rise, even while their connection rate has stalled. Also, seniors are very active with their connected devices, from PCs to tablets and smartphones.
There are more American seniors online than ever before. This is primarily due to two factors – rapid mobile phone adoption and the growing number of seniors in the U.S. population. Based on our TUP/Technology User Profile 2017 survey, nearly 44 million adults age 62 and older actively using a PC, tablet, mobile phone, or game console to connect to the Internet.
A market segment often overlooked or derided by the tech industry, seniors have been increasingly embracing technology, weaving it into the fabric of their lives.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, February 13, 2017
Wireless headsets have been available for more than a decade, and are strongest among two age and gender groups. These hearables-active groups also have above-average shares of VR Headset early adopters.
The strongest segments for active hearables use include younger males – age 18-44 and youngish females – age 25-34. Penetration is above one in four among males 25-34 (27%) and among males age 35-44 (26%). Among females, hearables usage peaks among females age 25-34, at 15%.
Looking ahead, we expect these same age & gender groups to continue as the strongest users of hearables and don’t expect other segments to be as keen on hearables. These age & gender segments are in some of the most-active life stages, with the highest levels of presence of children, full-time employment, and household income. These sociological factors correlate strongly with higher demand for home entertainment, game-playing, and streaming music listening. Also, they are the strongest age & gender segments in tech spending for devices and services.
These age & gender segments are also above-average in their use of voice assistants such as Apple Siri or Microsoft Cortana, and hearables help to use these with the greatest of convenience.
In other words, many of these youngish adults are looking for a way to listen to what they choose to listen to, and for a way to be heard, if not by friends or associates, at least by their own digital assistants.
About MetaFAQs
This MetaFAQs is based on the TUP/Technology User Profile 2016 survey.
MetaFAQs are answers to frequently asked questions about technology users. The research results showcase the TUP/Technology User Profile study, MetaFacts’ survey of a representative sample of online adults profiling the full market’s use of technology products and services. The current wave of TUP is TUP/Technology User Profile 2020, which is TUP’s 38th annual.
Current subscribers may use the comprehensive TUP datasets to obtain even more results or tailor these results to fit their chosen segments, services, or products. As subscribers choose, they may use the TUP inquiry service, online interactive tools, or analysis previously published by MetaFacts.
On request, interested research professionals can receive complimentary updates through our periodic newsletter. These include MetaFAQs – brief answers to frequently asked questions about technology users – or TUPdates – analysis of current and essential technology industry topics. To subscribe, contact MetaFacts.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
We know you’re curious – like we are! That’s what compels us to be researchers, driven by the quest for clearer truth and actionable insights.
To read more findings from MetaFacts, current subscribers can choose subjects of interest from among TUP Topics in our client portal.
There you will find a full range of deliverables: MetaFAQs, TUPdates, TUP Highlights, TUP Tables, and more, spanning the wide range of technology products, services, users, and the activities those users enjoy.
About TUP Deliverables
MetaFAQs
MetaFAQs are answers to frequently asked questions about technology users. They are drawn from the MetaFacts TUP/Technology User Profile datasets, the latest research developed through surveys. TUP/Technology User Profile 2020 is in its 38th continuous year.
TUPdates
TUPdates are focused analyses on current topics of interest in the technology industry. Like MetaFAQs, they draw on research results from the MetaFacts TUP/Technology User Profile datasets. They probe more deeply into the topic and are typically one to three pages long.
TUP Highlights & Tables
Subscribing clients who value ready access to key results value the TUP Highlights & Tables deliverables. MetaFacts analyzes the TUP results to prepare top-level findings with written analysis and charts, organized into topical areas. These are accompanied by supporting data in easy-to-access cross-tabulations.
TUP Datasets, Inquiry, Interactive
For hands-on analysts interested in deeper exploration, customization, and integration with other data sources value the TUP Datasets, Inquiry Service, or Interactive Tools. These deliverables provide ways for subscribing clients to quickly plumb the depths of TUP.
Usage guidelines: This document may be freely shared within and outside your organization in its entirety and unaltered. To share or quote excerpts, please contact MetaFacts.
