YoungAdults
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Nielsen: more than half of US teens now own smartphones
Yes, we know Android is holding steady at about 52 percent of US smartphone market share. What's interesting is just who's driving growth as a whole. According to Nielsen, 58 percent of American teens between 13 and 17 now have a smartphone -- that's a big jump from 36 percent a year earlier and a sign that the youngest owners have a significant sway over where the market is going. Not that young adults don't have an impact. Although the 25-to-34 crowd isn't making as big a comparative leap, its smartphone ownership has climbed from 59 percent to a dominating 74 percent in the same space of time. No matter how much youth set the pace, it's clear Android is still having an effect. Among the US smartphone buyers Nielsen tracked in the three months leading up to July, 58.6 percent went Google's direction. Most of that gain came from BlackBerry owners switching allegiances, which doesn't bode well when RIM is counting on existing owners to fuel BlackBerry 10 demand. We'd be careful about citing a one-point shrink in iPhone sales as a shift in the balance of power, however -- while it could be part of a trend, it could also represent the habitual lull in Apple's sales during the weeks before a major iPhone introduction.
Late mid-week shocker: young adults get their 'news' from the 'net, not from television
In what is undoubtedly a shocking and groundbreaking revelation, the Pew Research Center has conducted a recent study which has caused it to conclude that young adults now get their news predominantly from the internet, rather than from television (and even less from ham radio). According to the study, which the center seems to have been conducting yearly for a while now, 67 percent of adults under 30 said in 2010 that the 'net was their primary source of news, up from 34 percent in 2007. Curiously, respondents could choose up to two 'main' news sources, so 52 percent report that television is a main news source in 2010, down from 68 percent in 2007. While none of this probably comes as any surprise to any of you, our readers, it does tend to explain that strange and ever-growing tendency we've noticed in our friends of talking about things like Groupon, Facebook, and some meme some webpage made up to sell something as if they were talking about actual news.
