Overview

Half of all adult cell phone owners now incorporate their mobile devices into their television watching experiences. These “connected viewers” used their cell phones for a wide range of activities during the 30 days preceding our April 2012 survey:

• 38% of cell owners used their phone to keep themselves occupied during commercials or breaks in something they were watching
• 23% used their phone to exchange text messages with someone else who was watching the same program in a different location
• 22% used their phone to check whether something they heard on television was true
• 20% used their phone to visit a website that was mentioned on television
• 11% used their phone to see what other people were saying online about a program they were watching, and 11% posted their own comments online about a program they were watching using their mobile phone
• 6% used their phone to vote for a reality show contestant

Taken together, 52% of all cell owners are “connected viewers”—meaning they use their phones while watching television for at least one of these reasons.

About the Survey

The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from March 15 to April 3, 2012, among a sample of 2,254 adults, age 18 and older.  Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (1,351) and cell phone (903, including 410 without a landline phone). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.