• by Wayne Friedman , April 5, 2012

Virtually all U.S. portable device owners will use either their tablet or smartphones at least once during a 30-day period.

Nielsen says a fourth-quarter 2011 survey showed that 88% of U.S. tablet owners will use a tablet device at least once during any particular month while watching TV; that number comes to 86% of U.S. smartphone usage and TV.

U.S. owners use tablets or smartphone while watching TV more than other nations’ digital consumers. Nielsen says 26% of U.S. tablet owners user their devices “several times a day. By way of comparison, 24% of U.K. owners use their tablets “several times a day.” The numbers are 12% for those owners in Germany and 15% for those in Italy.

The behaviors are much the same with smartphones when it comes to heavy usage in a particular day while watching TV: 27% for the U.S.; 24% for the U.K.; 13% for Italy and 9% for Germany.

At the opposite end of simultaneous tablet-TV activity, 29% of users in Italy and Germany never use tablets while watching TV. The numbers are 20% for the U.K. and 12% for the U.S.

Somewhat the same numbers for never using smartphones while watching TV: 35% for Germany; 34% for Italy; 22% for the U.K. and 14% for the U.S.