One in four people in Scotland ditch their device to digitally detox
The Communications Market Report 2016: Scotland (PDF, 1.1 MB)
One in four internet users in Scotland have undertaken a ‘digital detox’ in a bid to strike a healthier balance between technology and life beyond the screen.
Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2016 reveals that 25% of Scottish internet users have sought a period of time offline, with one in ten (10%) doing so in the last week alone.
The most common reasons for taking a ‘tech timeout’ were to spend more time doing other things (cited by 47%) and more time with friends and family (29%).
Scots felt they were better able to cope without the internet than people in the UK as a whole (61% compared with 52%). Many also found their time offline to be a positive experience: almost half (45%) said they felt more productive, 33% enjoyed life more and a quarter (25%) found it liberating.
However, over one in ten (15%) experienced a ‘fear of missing out’ while on the web wagon, 21% felt lost and 15% ‘cut-off’.
Scots credit the internet with broadening their horizons; three-quarters (76%) of internet users say being online enables them to do things they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.
Just over eight in ten (81%) said that the internet had made their life easier, saving time and effort with services like banking and shopping.
But more than half of internet users in Scotland (53%) admitted they were guilty of ‘connectivity creep’ – spending longer browsing the internet than they originally intended, while 37% said the same of social media.
As a result, 44% neglected housework; 42% said they had missed out on sleep or were tired the next day; while 27% had missed out on spending time with friends and family.
People also reported a lack of ‘netiquette’ from strangers who can’t seem to put their devices down. Just over two fifths of adults in Scotland (21%) complained that someone bumped into them in the street at least once a week because they were too busy looking at their phone.
Seven in ten adults in Scotland (72%) felt they’d been ‘smart-snubbed’ - ignored by a friend or relative too engrossed in their smartphone or tablet - with 32% experiencing this at least once a week, and 10% stating it happened on a daily basis.
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Annex A: Adults' media literacy in the nations (PDF, 292.3 KB)
People in Scotland spend an average 4 hours a day watching broadcast television.
More than a third (34%) of adults rate watching live TV as their most important media activity - higher than the UK average (27%).
Adults in Scotland are spending more time watching paid on-demand content through services such as Netflix and Now TV than in 2014.
The average time spent listening to radio in Scotland is on par with the UK average.
During an average week in 2015, 87.9% of adults listened to the radio in 2015, tuning in for just over 21 hours each week.
Commercial stations accounted for 50% of listening hours - the highest across any of the UK nations.
Three quarters of homes (78%) have fixed broadband, up from 71% in 2015.
92% of premises were in areas with outdoor 4G coverage from at least one mobile network in May 2016.
More than half (58.4%) had outdoor coverage from all four 4G networks, an increase of 21.4 percentage points on last year.
Scotland had the lowest proportion of premises with outdoor 3G coverage from at least one mobile network, across the UK nations, at 97.9%.
Download this section (PDF, 125.7 KB) (updated October 2016)
Adult internet users in Scotland currently spend an average of 20.9 hours online each week.
Six out of ten internet users in Scotland consider themselves ‘hooked’ on their connected device.
46% of Scottish adults use instant messaging at least once a week - up from 18% in 2014.
Rural areas in Scotland are less likely than urban areas to have access to broadband (70% compared to 81%).
Over nine in ten (94%) said they were satisfied with the availability of post boxes.
A similar number (91%) are satisfied with the time of day post is delivered.
Nearly nine in ten (87%) businesses in Scotland said they were also satisfied with the quality of service from Royal Mail.
Just over a quarter of adults (27%) had sent a personal letter in the past month, while 38% had sent a formal letter.
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