EY report shows young adults are spending less time online

A new report from legal firm EY shows that around half of all young adults between the age of 25 and 34 are now setting aside time to put down their smartphones and disconnect from their digital lives.

Legal firm EY has released a new digital consumer report entitled "Decoding the digital home 2019" that breaks down data from 2,500 UK consumers in a broad cross-section of UK households. This is the first in a series of reports the firm is producing based on its annual survey collected in September 2018 on entertainment and telecommunication technology within the home.

The stats in this latest report offer some interesting insight into how various age groups use technology, highlighting things such as the fact that 50% of young adults from the age of 25 to 34 are now actively seeking time away from their smartphones and internet-enabled devices as a form of "digital detox." This compares to the current average of 43% across all households, which itself has risen from 41% last year.

Other notable results from the survey include a reported drop in online viewing habits throughout the year, with only 28% of people now reporting that they spend 30 hours or more online in a week compared to 34% in 2017. People are also spreading their time across fewer services, with 41% of people using just a small number of familiar websites and 51% either using no smartphone apps or just a few familiar apps.

This data can be used by companies in the telecommunications and technology sector to more accurately predict the habits of emerging customers in younger demographics, a key indicator of future growth. EY concludes that firms should revisit their old assumptions about customer types, work to simplify their digital offerings, and focus on establishing trust and ensuring online security of customers and their data.