If it seems like an ever increasing number of your friends are using tablets, and possible multiple ones, your impressions are accurate according to a report from research company Pew Reserch Center’s Pew Internet effort.
The report has a great deal of interesting data but one piece that really leaps out is the owner demographics, which are much different from other emerging technologies such as smartphones, which are traditionally adopted first by a younger age group, in smartphones case the 18-34 year segment.
Tablet ownership trend to an older demographic with adults in the 35-44 age group being very strongly represented with an almost 50% ownership level. While the report does not mention it I suspect that a leading reason is that while tablet popularity is new, there have been numerous attempts over the last two decades to introduce them as a mainstream product and so people in this group are both familiar with the idea, and now see it as an extension of both PCs and smartphones.
According to the study the three groups that are most likely to own a tablet are those living in households that make at least $75,000 a year (56%) compared to lower income; Adults age 35-44 (49%) compared with older and younger adults and college graduates (49%).
The report goes on to break down the demographics in a great deal more detail including parental status, gender, and race/ethnicity. One of the interesting outtakes is that according to the report there are no statistically significant differences in tablet ownership between men and women, or between members of different racial or ethnic groups.
I suspect that tablets will continue to see a huge adoption rate, in part because they are replacing notebooks but more so because the quality is increasing at the low end. There are now $100 offerings that would serve quite well as a device to use as a second screen, so that you can track what is happening at another sports event and then switch over to catch key moments.
As they continue to drop in price I believe that users will start having multiple tablets with a high end model replacing a computer and a low cost, entry level model dedicated for a single purpose, such as next to the TV or for trips where you fear it may be lost or damaged.
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