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You’re devoting a whole lot of time to smartphone apps, and it’s likely more for play than work. At least that’s what recent statistics suggest.
The amount of time people spend each month on smartphone apps was nearly 37 1/2 hours in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to market research firm Nielsen. That represented a 63 percent jump over the same period two years ago.
It’s the latest illustration of just how much time people are spending on their smartphones. These statistics, much like television ratings, can be used by app developers and marketers alike to find different ways to entice you to either use their app or buy their product.
The key drivers of usage were entertainment apps, which saw a 13 percent year-over-year increase in users in the fourth quarter. For anyone who plays Clash of Clans or Minecraft, it’s no surprise that gaming was the top category within entertainment. People in the survey reported spending an average of 10 hours a month on games, or nearly four times as long as the next most popular category, music.
The data, collected by Nielsen’s on-device software, was also broken down by ethnicity and gender. African-Americans used the most apps per month (30.3) and spent the most time (43 hours), while white non-Hispanic users spent 35 hours and 25 minutes a month. Nielsen also found that men used more apps than women, but that women spent more time on the apps they used.
