News

Tinder & Netflix Peak Usage Times Overlap, Reveals Research Into Smartphone Interactions

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There is a strong correlation between when people watch Netflix and use dating apps like Tinder & OkCupid.

The peak usage of these incredibly popular, but very different, services happens at the same time – when people are back from work & school, between 7 – 11pm.

Although Tinder’s peak times came around 10pm, the app did see more spikes throughout the day, its usage rates climbing at around 9am, and again at 4pm – increases which were also common for OkCupid.

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This data comes from research platform dscout, whose latest research study decided to track smartphone touches rather than time, to try and grasp exactly how, and when, smartphone users engage with their devices.

To do this, dscout picked a “demographically diverse” sample of 94 Android users from a pool of 100,000 participants and installed a tracking tool onto their smartphones, to record every user’s interaction over five full days.

An interaction includes every tap, click and swipe.

By doing this, the brand estimated that the average person interacts with their smartphone at least 2,617 times a day, and almost 1m times every year, with the biggest users engaging as much as 5,427 times each day.

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These interactions were made in around 76 separate phone sessions a day for the average user, and 132 sessions for the heavy user.

One of the most popular periods was between midnight and 5am, with a massive 87% of people using their phone between these hours.

And regarding actual phone screen time, this totalled 2.42 hours for the normal user, and 3.75 hours for the top tier user.

Other findings of the study included that although participants used 700+ different apps over five days, 52% of their sessions were to use one app (Facebook), and another 40% to use two or three apps.

As the researchers said: “Engagement is narrow and focused, not that much multitasking. Hop in, pick your obsession, and stick with it.”

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Speaking about the data in a recent blog post, dscout CEO Michael Winnick said: “As product teams go about solving our problems and working really hard to engage us, they become masters at hijacking our time and our touches. But by squandering our two most precious personal resources–presence and attentiveness–have designers inadvertently created the tech version of Oxycontin?

“Perhaps these challenges will be solved by technology itself. Virtual reality promises full immersion. Chatbots and virtual assistants might learn so much about us that they can manage the digital flotsam and jetsam on our behalf.

“More likely, however, is that new devices will compound the challenge. More things and more services will be vying for beachfront property in our pockets, our homes, and most of all, our cerebellums. After all, more than half of Americans have at least five devices in their home already. That number is going to jump… a lot. Will our interactions increase in tandem? I hope not.”

dscout is a research software producer and consultancy that counts Google, Microsoft and Intel amongst its clients.

The study, which contains a host of insights into smartphone behaviours can be downloaded for free here.

Simon Edmunds

Simon is the former editor of Global Dating Insights. Born in Newcastle, he has an English degree from Queen Mary, London and after working for the NHS, trained as a journalist with the Press Association. Passionate about music, journalism and Newcastle United.

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