It is easy to see that mobile devices have changed the way we interact with others and alongside our ever growing need to stay engaged and connected with the rest of the world there has been a constant growth in social media usage. The way we consume content has moved from desktop to mobile; although desktop will still dominate certain activities (shown in the image below by Statista), mobile activity is predominant. We live in a non-stop age where we want to have information to hand at all times, and let’s face it, why wouldn’t we?!

Did you know that smartphone owners spend 86% of their time using apps vs. the mobile web (14%) [Source: Neilsen] And while we spend 34h17 a month using browsers/apps on a smartphone, we also spend 27h03 using the internet on a computer. I was actually expecting both of those figures to be higher…weren’t you?

According to a Nielsen report, 64% of social media users say they use social media sites at least once a day via their computer. On the other hand, 47% of smartphone owners visited social networks every day and the unique audience for social media smartphones apps increased by 37%! This just shows how much social networks have become ingrained into our daily lives.

Everyone and his dog have heard of Facebook, so it’s no surprise that it is the largest social network in both the web and mobile. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 48% of its daily active users only use mobile devices while 49% of its total ad revenues come from mobile ads. [Source: Social Media Today] The chart below shows us just how much we use Facebook and other social networks each month through different devices.

All this goes to show how important responsive design is for a brand yet how it’s no longer just about having a webpage that works well on smartphones and handheld devices - there is an increasing need for apps.