skip to Main Content

More than Half of "Tech Resistant" Consumers Visit Social Networking Sites

A couple of years ago, I reviewed Bill Tancer’s excellent book “Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters.” Now Bill’s team at Experian has released a new report that looks at changes in consumer behavior using the local, social, mobile web. One of the most interesting findings is that more than half of so-called “Novices” (i.e., the folks “…most resistant to adopting a new technology-focused life”) text, email and visit social networking sites.

In fact, those three activities were the only ones listed that garnered greater than 70% share among consumers in the survey:

Activity Use in last 30 days
Send/receive email 84%
Send/receive text 74%
Visited social network sites 71%

Search was not listed as an activity, though I suspect it would clear the 70% bar, too.

Interestingly, “send/receive email” showed a slight decline year-on-year, while “send/receive text” grew 8% and “visited social network sites” shot up over 20%.

Another great finding: 28% of consumers perform shopping activities from their mobile phones while in brick-and-mortar stores. I’ve argued that you should ignore the “no one uses mobile” meme and I suspect this number will grow in the coming months and years.

There are loads of other excellent insights in the report. Check it out if you get the chance and let me know what you think.


Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tim Peter is the founder and president of Tim Peter & Associates. You can learn more about our company's strategy and digital marketing consulting services here or about Tim here.

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back To Top
Search