What tech consumers are actually doing with technology – current MetaFacts TUP/Technology User Profile research results
Chromebooks have been offered as a low-cost alternative to full-featured Windows and Apple notebooks. One often-cited segment includes students and their parents. This MetaFAQs looks into the active installed base of Chromebooks among parents in the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, and China.
Continue reading “Chromebooks make a tiny dent with parents [MetaFAQs]”By Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, April 24, 2020
Parents are busier than ever with the many stay at home conditions and school closures across the US now.
Two days ago (April 22, 2020), we surveyed 322 online adults with children 18 or younger. We asked them about the computing devices in their homes, how they share them, what they plan to buy in the next few months, and how an additional home PC might affect their home.
Most parents say they have enough computing devices at home. Nearly two-thirds (61%) have as many or more PCs or tablets than people. Many parents said an additional personal PC is not really wanted, as most (35%) say it would make no difference and feel they have enough (12%).
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst
Who can quantify the pride or commitment of a parent? On social networks, I often see a parent sharing their happiness about their child reaching an educational milestone.
One measure of parental pride, dedication, or support could include the investment they make in tools to help their children grow and learn. Technology spending among adults with children continues to increase, and especially so among those with younger school-age children.
As released in our most recent wave of Technology User Profile – TUP 2017 US – our research shows that spending on home technology devices and services has increased both in volume and breadth. The number of Connected Adults with school-age children has grown, and so has their average tech spending. In TUP 2015, we found that 72.5 million Connected Adults were in households with Children. That grew to 81.2 million, as ascertained in our TUP 2017 wave.
The average (mean) annual amount spent on technology devices and services is strikingly stronger for households with children than for those without children. The average annual tech spend increased from $7.4k to nearly $11k within only the last two years – from the TUP 2015 to TUP 2017 survey. During this same time, homes without children increased their tech spending, although the growth has not been as substantial. Among adults with no children, average spending rose from $5.9k to $6.7k over those three study years.
Drilling down into the TUP data just a little deeper, I noticed a more interesting difference among households with children in their tech spending. Homes with younger school-age children (age 6-11) are spending the most on home technology devices and services. Meanwhile, households with either the oldest or the youngest children have increased spending, although not by as many dollars.
While not all home technology is being bought solely for the use of kids, there’s a strong association. For example, more than one-in five (22%) adults with children in their household specifically print items for children/teen education.
Also, Connected Adults with school-age children (6-17) are 20% or more likely than the average to be using a Home All-in-One PC, Apple Home Mac, or Home Tablet.
Looking ahead
Parents have been some of the biggest tech spenders for decades, and this recent increase in investment bodes well for the tech market as well as for the next wave of children. Each successive generation has become more comfortable with and reliant on technology devices and services. I expect this momentum to continue as each new generation of new parents uses what they know to support their children’s education and future.
Source
The information in this TUPdate is based on the three most recent waves of Technology User Profile (TUP) – the TUP 2015, 2016, and 2017 waves into the US. Current TUP subscribers can tap into these and additional similar results about adults with children in the UK, Germany, China, and India. For more information about MetaFacts and subscribing to TUP, please contact MetaFacts.
The age-old tradition of the family gathering around the home PC printer during the holidays to create unique greeting cards appears to be slipping-the practice has been in decline for the last three years. However, families with young children appear to be clinging to the tradition more tightly than others. Meanwhile, the percentage of hard-core card senders-those households for whom card-creation is the main reason for having a PC printer-has remained about the same.
These and other insights about the convergence of home PCs, printers, and greeting cards were derived from 10,418 households who responded to questionnaires submitted by MetaFacts, Inc. concerning uses of their home PC printers. The results showed that in 2004 about a third of American households (32.6 percent) used their home computer to make greeting cards, down from 35.5 percent in 2003 and 39.2 percent in 2002. Perhaps the practice of making unique cards is now so time-tested that the results don’t seem as novel any more.
Self-made greeting cards reflect a creative, personal and high-involvement action on the part of the computer user. Even with the gentle and sometimes thorough assistance of some software and sites to design the card and compose the sentiment, it still involves communication with friends, family and other intimates. It forms a personal expression and statement. Therefore, it’s a key indicator of how deeply involved home computers and printers are in the American lifestyle.
The presence of small children in the home appears to make it significantly more likely that the family will devote more time to greeting card creation. For instance, 15.1 percent of households surveyed in 2004 said that greeting card creation was the main use of their printer, but that figure rose to 20.6 percent for households with PC users aged three to 12. (Yet, having teen-aged users didn’t help, since the average for households with PCs users aged 13 to 19 was 14.9 percent-about average, in other words.)
Households with income less than $50,000 were also more likely to make their own cards, with 17.3 percent listing it as the main use of their printers. Either they like to save money, or have practices favoring personal creativity over buying ready-made solutions.
Meanwhile, the percentage of hardcore card-makers has barely declined, even if the practice has slipped significantly among the general population. As stated above, 15.1 percent of households in 2004 listed card creation as the primary use for their printers. That’s only a slight decrease from 15.9 percent in 2003 and 16.8 percent in 2002. This probably means we won’t see a specialized greeting-card printer in the near future, as the market may be too small to justify it.
On the other hand, card-making has remained the second most common activity for which special paper is used-understandably, since the paper is an important factor in making a card unique. It also helps to have the paper pre-scored for easy and professional-looking folding. In 2004, 40.9 percent of PC-owning households report that card-creation was an activity that they used special paper for, second to photo printing (68.1 percent). Letter writing was a distant third, at 18.4 percent. Here, too, prevalence has fallen during the last three years, since the rate of using special paper to create cards was 42.4 percent in 2003 and 46.7 percent in 2002. (However, it remained in second place during those years, between photo printer and letter writing.)
Here, too, the presence of small children among the users meant a higher rate of usage. While 40.9 percent of the general PC user population reported using special paper for cards, the rate rose to 47.2 percent for those with users aged three to 12 in the house. But in this case the highest rate was among those households with teenaged users, rising to 49.6 percent. Evidently, teenagers value uniqueness-and they do so consistently. The rate was 48.7 percent in 2003 and 49.8 percent in 2002.
In case you were wondering, the demographic least likely to create their own cards were the single adults. Only 10 percent of single-adults households said that card-making was the most common use of their printer in 2004. Here, too, the trend was downward, from 11.8 percent in 2003 and 13.8 percent in 2002.
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