Tablets Equal All-Day Media Consumption

Despite declining demand, new research suggests that tablets have cemented their status as essential consumer gadgets.

Much more than a “living room” device, the study shows that tablets have become highly portable, always-on entertainment hubs.

In fact, TV-style prime time (7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) only accounts for 33% of tablet usage, compared to upwards of 70% usage for traditional TV, according to a new report from Flurry Analytics.

More remarkable, tablets' broad application appears to span generations, according to Simon Khalaf, Flurry CEO.

“This finding of iPad pervasiveness is not surprising for teens and college students," Khalaf explains in the new report. "However, we were quite surprised at the data on working adults -- we expected significant let-up in tablet usage during work hours and heavier usage around traditional prime time.” 

Still, tablet owners’ use of productivity apps told a very different story. Teens and college students are using their tablets as PC replacements and have four peak usage times: in the morning as they wake up, midafternoon, mid-evening and late night for procrastinators. 

Working adults, meanwhile, mostly engage in productivity apps right after prime time, most likely because their kids have gone to bed, and their must-see shows have ended.

What's more, as Flurry's research shows, working adults rarely use their tablets as PC replacements during work hours.

“While there are multiple factors that can explain this trend, such as the lack of a keyboard, IT not sanctioning the tablet as a corporate device and Microsoft not releasing Office on the iPad till about a month ago, we didn't expect the generational gap to be so profound,” according to Khalaf.

Khalaf and his team expect this trend to shift as teens and college students begin to enter the workforce, and a new breed of personal productivity software is designed specifically for tablets.

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