Wall Street Journal Microtrends Column: Smartphoniacs: Addicts of the Information Age by Mark Penn
By MARK PENN with E. KINNEY ZALESNE
From The Wall Street Journal Microtrends Column
Published July 7, 2009
Among everybody from our leaders to our teenagers, no habit is spreading faster than being connected 24/7 via a smart phone.
Its penetration in the U.S. is estimated at 18%, and it seems that everywhere you turn, people are using their smart phones in new ways and in new places. Samsung recently estimated that it expects 500 million global smart-phone users by 2012. Actual phone calls are becoming extinct compared with handheld texts and email messages — whoever thought people would prefer typing to talking? But the evidence appears to say they do.
This has also given rise to a group of people — the top 10% of smart-phone users — who just can’t stop. They are the smartphoniacs, the true addicts of the information age.
