Gaming tops tablet activity, says Google study

By Andrew Couts April 9, 2011

Apple-iPad-2-gaming — Image used with permission by copyright holder

A new survey by Google AdMob has found that tablet owners primarily use their touchscreen devices for playing games, the Guardian reports. Other popular uses include emailing, social networking and consuming media like videos, music and e-books.

Out of the 1,430 tablet owners interviewed, 84 percent used the device for playing games. “Searching for information” came in as the second most-popular activity at 78 percent, followed by emailing (74 percent), reading the news (61 percent) and using social networks (56 percent). Only 51 percent use their tablets for watching videos or reading music, the study found. And Reading e-books was only popular among 46 percent of those interviewed.

The study (PDF) also shows that tablets, while not yet more popular than PCs, are certainly making headway against their bulky competition with 28 percent identifying their tablet as their primary computer, and 43 percent admitting that they spend more time using their tablet than their PC.

Despite obvious benefit of being able to easily take a tablet anywhere, most people (82 percent) say they mostly use their device at home. A mere 11 percent said they use their tablet as a mobile device. A total of 68 percent of owners use their tablet at least one hour per day, with 34 percent admitting that they use the device for two or more hours daily.

While some of the information wasn’t much of a surprise (59 percent use their tablets more than they read books), the study did find that 1 in 3 tablet owners use their tablet more than they watch TV. (Which would probably explain why Time Warner and Cable vision are so anxious to offer their programming on the iPad.)

Google never explicitly mentions what type of tablet those they interviewed own, but considering that the study was conducted last month, it’s safe to assume that a large percentage of those polled owned an Apple iPad.

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