Mobile phones are helping balance work and social lives around the world
Espoo, Finland - Multi-tasking, or doing more than one activity at a time, is a way of life for everyone these days. Between work, family and social life, people are finding themselves busier than ever. But the results of a recent global online survey conducted by Nokia indicated that women are better at multitasking than men with 60 percent of respondents, both men and women. Only six percent of women believe that men are better at doing more than one thing at a time.
From the total of more than 5,000 respondents, 79 percent consider themselves multitaskers, with 50% describing themselves 'productive' and 31% 'busy'. The majority of men and women in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Norway indicated they can do several things at once. The most relaxed were the Finnish people at 74 percent.
An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents believe that having a mobile phone enables them to achieve a positive balance between their work and social life. And, while 63 percent believe they be less productive without their mobile phone, 74 percent believe it makes them better at multitasking.
"People are utilizing their mobile phones more than ever," said Dom Fried-Booth, Insights Director, Devices, Nokia. "And with all the features available on mobile phones today, including calendars, email, and text messaging, people are using them for more than just making calls. This helps some people be more productive for work and others run the family household more smoothly. Whatever the case, though, mobile phones are clearly helping people get what they want out of life."
According to the survey, mobile phones are helping people be more productive. Sixty-two percent of respondents do two or three activities while talking on their mobile phone, including internet browsing and shopping. Seventy-five percent of women said they prepare food and 50 percent put on makeup while using their mobile phone.
Although the majority of respondents claimed they do more than one thing at a time while on their mobile phone, 48 percent indicated the call was their main focus. When asked what was the most fun activity to do while on their mobile phone, most said "being in bed," although no more specifics were given.
Multitasking while on your mobile phone can certainly lead to amusing situations. Forty-seven percent of respondents to the Nokia survey indicated that they have sent a romantic or controversial text message to the wrong person and 56 percent of women did that.
The multitasking survey was conducted online through nokia.com between October 15 and November 1, 2007 by Illuminas and was conducted in the United Kingdom, Spain, Finland, Italy, China, Brazil, Germany, Denmark, France, USA, Sweden and Norway.
Nokia has undertaken the industry's most comprehensive consumer survey, compiling more than 10 billion data points from 77 000 consumer interviews in 21 countries resulting in a unique, in-depth understanding of consumers' values, beliefs and attitudes. This insight guides Nokia's activities from product development and design through marketing and sales.
