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Mobile technology a real youth movement

Carly Mayberry, The Hollywood Reporter

Published November 29, 2005 at midnight

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Young women spend more time on their mobile phones than they do watching TV these days.

That was one of the many findings released from a study conducted by Nielsen Entertainment on the attitudes and usage patterns of consumers regarding video games and mobile entertainment. The study included results from two separate reports, "Benchmarking the Active Gamer" and "Benchmarking Mobile Entertainment," with each surveying more than 2,000 consumers online who engage in these activities.

That girls spend 23.5 hours a week with a cell phone to their ear in comparison to 20.9 hours watching TV is in conjunction with the finding of a significant rise in video game play by females, with women just as likely to play free online games as men.

It also was discovered that video game play dominates the overall leisure time of so-called gamers, with males playing on average 12 hours a week - or 25 percent of their leisure time. Yet, when it comes to game content, traditional sports still rule as the most preferred genre.

"Playing video games, once considered the domain of teenage boys, has evolved into a medium that is now capable of reaching expanding demographics of gamers, including females, Hispanics and older players," said Michael Dowling, general manager of Nielsen Interactive Entertainment. "As games continue to increase (their) share of entertainment leisure time, it's quite possible playing video games will assume a significant role as a common cultural experience, in a way that movies and television do today."

On average, active mobile phone consumers spend 17 hours a week on their phones, 13 hours conversing and 4 hours on data services - an amount that surpassed time devoted to music, video games, moviegoing and home entertainment.

The survey also established that mobile phone use and its related services top all entertainment expenditures per month and confirmed the interconnectedness between mobile technology and games, with nearly two-thirds of the 18 percent of gamers who've downloaded a game to their cell phone happy with the experience.