Flurry began the study with the belief that the “second screen” (a mobile device, the “first screen” being the TV) is still “largely more disruptive than complementary.” Basically, people aren’t really using their devices in tandem with the TV – more like opposed to it. When something happening on the TV isn’t interesting to a viewer, they are then likely to pick up their iPhone and start playing Angry Birds.

Their study pretty much corroborated that belief. Big moments in the Super Bowl broadcast equated to decreases in app usage. People put down their phones for things like the coin toss and for kickoff.

But the longest sustained period of time with a drop in app usage covering the entire Super Bowl came during Madonna’s halftime performance.

Whether people were watching because they thought it was awesome, or because it’s hard to look away from a train wreck – the point is people were tuned in.

From the post:

Studying overall trends reveals a highly correlated, inverse relationship between app usage and game, halftime and commercial events. Generally, app usage increased steadily over the first three quarters of the game, showing the challenge in holding peoples’ attention over several hours. However, because this year’s game was close throughout, including an exciting fourth quarter finish, app usage remained relatively checked.

Noticeably, app usage declined significantly during the last part of the fourth quarter. The most clearly visible change in app usage occurred during Madonna’s half time show, where app usage remained consistently low for the longest, sustained period of time. From this, we conclude that Madonna strongly held viewers’ attention on the first screen and was a major draw for the Super Bowl this year.

Advertisement popularity was also found to link to a decrease in mobile app usage. The ad that saw the smallest use in apps was Elton John’s Pepsi commercial.

For those uninitiated in this most carnal of social activities, a casual encounter can be defined as any of the following: no-strings-attached sex, relationship-free sex, one night stand (though not limited to one night), booty calls, hook-ups, f**k buddies, friends with benefits, guy/girl on the side – the list is probably endless.

As maligned as such an lifestyle still remains in certain regions of our culture, more and more people are refusing to be shamed by their need to get their rocks off. Now, something bawdy this way comes in the shape of a “report” claiming that casual sexual encounters arranged on the Internet are more likely to end in with a walk down the aisle than walks of shame.

OnlineBootyCall.com, a website whose purpose you can probably parse for yourself as well as the world’s number one destination for casual online dating (that last part is a euphemism for casual sex, by the way), has “studied” the testimonials members have given as to why they’ve decided to delete their profile. Brilliantly titled “testiMOANials,” OBC says that an “overwhelming majority” of those departing site members claim to have found true love on the website. In a statement released today, the purveyors of promiscuity say that the second most-cited reason members leave OBC is because they have “started dating someone I met.”

OnlineBootyCall.com shared a testimonial of one satisfied woman who, after a successful booty call yielded repeated encounters, ended up settling down with someone she found on the site:

“I didn’t have to spend hundreds of dollars nor did I have to wait over 6 months to find the completion of my heart.” She and her husband met four years ago on OnlineBootyCall, have been married for three years, and have a 2-year-old daughter together. “We both sit back and laugh now at how we met because he nor I wanted anyone to know … lol,” she says, “but now I’ll just tell anybody … I love that man!! Thank you again OBC!”

OnlineBootyCall’s founder and president, Moses Brown pledged that, apropos of nothing, “all online encounters should be considered casual until proven otherwise.” In spite of that slippery adage, he explained the high frequency of happy endings on OnlineBootyCall, “Sites like eHarmony put too much emphasis on the serious task of starting relationships online. At OBC, our members are having fun meeting new people and are dating without the pressure of commitment.”

I doubt that this report will find its way into any scientific journals any time soon, nor do I imagine a significant increase in people willing to drop their drawers for strangers, but.. you gotta give OBC a hand for trying, right?

Well, that’s not patently true, but the study did find that the average Facebook user “gets more from their friends than they give to their friends.” Wait, wouldn’t the interaction between people on Facebook be reciprocal? How does one person receive more than they give on a site that operates on the premise of sharing?

Turns out that the people termed “power users” are offsetting the balance of the force. From the study:

As a result of these power users, the average Facebook user receives friend requests, receives personal messages, is tagged in photos, and receives feedback in terms of “likes” at a higher frequency than they contribute. What’s more, power users tend to specialize. Some 43% of those in our sample were power users in at least one Facebook activity: sending friend requests, pressing the like button, sending private messages, or tagging friends in photos.

There actually aren’t that many “power users” roaming around out there in Facebook – the study identifies only 5% of Facebookers as power users is all of the activities listed above. Still, these “power users” are unrequited juggernauts of Facebook if they’re able to skew the numbers so much that they’re making all of us normal Facebookers look like self-interested goons.

The study also revealed some peculiar demographic facts about Facebook users:

And finally, my favorite:

Concerning the last discovery, Pew did some confusing yet fascinating data-magic and found that the average person has 245 friends, whereas the average friend of a person has 359. They explain:

The vast majority of Facebook users in our sample (84%) have smaller sized networks of friends than their average network size of their Facebook friends. Even the median Facebook user from our sample with a network of 111 friends sees their average friend as having a friends list that is nearly two and a half times larger than their own (2.4 times larger).

How can it be that people’s friends almost always have more friends than they do? This little known phenomenon of friendship networks was first explained by a sociologist Scott Feld [in his research published in American Journal of Sociology, 'Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do.']. Not just on Facebook, in general and off of Facebook, people are more likely to be friends with someone who has more friends than with someone who has fewer.

That math still doesn’t make sense to me, either, but take the comfort while you can.

I’m a little disturbed by the fact that unpopularity on Facebook, merely as a measure of how many friends you have and not how well accepted you are – is reflective of Real Life. We really are just simple creatures of habit.

This study is full other interesting revelations, many of which would stand alone as fodder for dissertation-worthy material. In the end, the value (among many) to take from this study is that you apparently shouldn’t feel discouraged when you see that your friends’ friends count is much higher than yours. We’re all not as well friended as our friends so sleep more soundly knowing your popularity on Facebook is a lot like everybody else’s.

Really. Researchers at Chicago University’s Booth Business School are publishing a study that states Twitter is harder to resist than those two controlled substances. One researcher asserts that the social media site “may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage these activities.”

I suppose arguing that Twitter irresistibility is owed to the fact that it doesn’t “cost much” is fair because, after all, using Twitter will negatively impact your life a lot less than, say, cirrhosis or lung cancer. By that metric, though, Twitter is harder to resist than lots of other things. Let us ponder a moment and compare the urge to tweet to other urges. Like a fill in the blank game: ‘Twitter is harder to resist than ______________.” My offerings:

What an easy game to play.

Sorry, Chicago Business school, but this sounds like science for the junk yard. Twitter’s not going to kill anybody and so, as long as Tweeters aren’t making anybody’s life inconvenient with their habit, who cares if it’s harder to resist than booze and smokes. I don’t have any tactful way to say it other than that. Since we’re talking about alcohol, cigarettes, and Twitter in the same context, here are some recent tweets from Drunk Hulk and Nick Nolte’s Mugshot that I think are pretty fun.

In the land where parody accounts of celebrities brush shoulders with the insipid accounts of real celebrities literally getting paid to tweet, which is layered on top of millions of actually meaningful accounts, it probably isn’t a surprise to anyone that the United States is home to the most Twitter accounts with nearly 108 million accounts. While fathoming that amount is kind of a headache – seriously, that’s an average of roughly 1 account per 3 people in the United States – it only accounts for 28.1% of all Twitter accounts worldwide. Still, the growth of Twittering Americans doesn’t seem like it’ll slow down anytime since 5.6 million accounts were created in the United States in December 2011 alone.

Brazil and Japan are involved in an interesting contest for 2nd and 3rd place in the Twitterscape. Brazil has actually surpassed Japan in terms of the sheer quantity of user accounts but Japan still exhibits more Twitter activity than Brazil. Between September 2011 and December 2011, the study says, 30% of accounts in Japan posted a message whereas only 25% of accounts in Brazil posted a message. It’s all a matter of which metric you want to weight, but then again, it’s not like there’s a trophy for being #2 Twitter Country (not that there is for 1st place, either). Additionally, Japanese is still the 2nd most used language on Twitter after English.

While the United States might be the girthiest nation when it comes to Twitter accounts, they’re certainly not the most active (you like how that’s a metaphor for a lot of things related to the American lifestyle?). In fact, the distinction of most active Twittering country belongs to the Netherlands. One-third of all accounts located in the Netherlands posted at least one public message between September 1, 2011, and November 30, 2011. Japan and Spain follow in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, while the U.S. places at 4th in activity. Still, even with the U.S. ranking as the 4th most active country on Twitter, that ranking would surely be lower if not for the sheer heft of accounts existing in the United States.

With so much drama in the Twitter lately, it’s a bit hard to anticipate how these figures will look this time in 2013. By then we’ll have a fuller understanding of how Twitter’s new policy of selectively withholding tweets (if and when they do) has affected users’ activity. Additionally, now that Twitter is expanding languages to be included in their Translation Center, such as Arabic and Farsi, it’ll be curious to see how those changes may affect the landscape of Twitter activity.

Anybody out there got any speculations you wanna bet on? See any changes on the horizon for how different parts of the world might use Twitter? Feel free to share below in the comments.

Er. Or not?

Apparently, most of the gamers in the United States didn’t take too favorably to the taste of 3D games because a new independent survey of gamers suggests that 3D gaming might be on life support in America. The survey, which was conducted by coupon website CouponCodes4U.com, surveyed over 2,000 gamers to find out whether they were against 3D gaming. The impetus for the study came after Nintendo announced a staggering financial loss for the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2012. This time last year was a different story for Nintendo when it was posting up high with profits of $637 million. This year, however, the console manufacturer has posted a loss of $626 million.

In a statement detailing the results of the study, CouponCodes4U.com said they found that 71% of gamers replied “no” when asked, “Are you in favor of future next generation consoles having 3D technology?” Among those who participated in the survey, 84% stated that they believe 3D gaming was “a fad” and more than a third said that they were “unimpressed” with the Nintendo 3DS after they played it.

More than dismissing 3D gaming as a fad, some gamers simply did not enjoy the experience of playing a 3DS. 46% of the gamers who’d taken the 3DS for a test-drive said they didn’t think it added to their gaming experience. Incredibly, 18% of those who had played the 3DS said that playing the console made them feel dizzy.

No wonder Nintendo’s revenues are currently living in bizarro world of gaming: I don’t think people enjoy getting their brains scrambled when they’re trying to get their gaming on.

Mark Pearson, Chairman of CouponCodes4U, commented on how his company has “seen searches and sales of 3DS games and consoles nosedive in the last year” and how the plunge of Nintendo seems to be a significant reflection of this trend. He added, “As a gamer myself, I just don’t see why manufacturers feel the need to jump on this particular bandwagon.”

I guess that means he thinks 3D gaming is a fad, too.

Any readers out there agree with the findings of this survey? Did the 3DS give you that dizzy morning after feeling or did you simply not enjoy it all that much?

But I thought I was in the minority. According to a study from marketing agency 11mark, I’m actually in the vast majority. It seems nobody can live without their phones while in the bathroom.

The study, IT in the Toilet, found that 75% of Americans admit to using their mobile device while in the bathroom. The most popular activity? Sending texts, with 67% of all respondents saying they’ve done that in the bathroom. While only 41% said that they have initiated a phone call from the bathroom, 63% said that they have answered one. Now you know what that hollow, echoing sound you hear while on the phone to your friends really means.

Men are more dependent on having their phones in the bathroom, with 30% saying explicitly “I don’t go to the bathroom without my mobile phone.” Only 20% of women said that.

And Android users are the most likely to use their phone in the bathroom – 87% said they have. Only 77% of iPhone users admitted to it.

Check out the infographic below for some more stats about phone use on the pot:

Anyways. The results of a study conducted by uSamp on the info-sharing habits of men and women on social media show that men are more likely than women to share personal information on social media sites like their email address, location, and physical address. Each year over 3 million adults report being stalked (hey, did you know that January is Stalking Awareness Month?), and given it’s common but not limited to that women being stalked by men, it’s hardly a stretch of the imagination to wonder why some women might be more reluctant to share their personal information.

Still, certain personal details about men and women appear to be less guarded, such as birthdate, education level, and occupation. Given that those are the standard give-aways on sites like Facebook and Google+, that’s not really that surprising.

Take a look at the statistics below in the infographic that uSamp put together and comment below about anything you find intriguing or surprising.

One of the main driving points in the entertainment industry’s support of SOPA and its various incarnations has been their claim that, allegedly, piracy is gutting the entertainment industry. To hear them, along with the government proponents aligned with them, describe the ordeal conjures up an entertainment industry as some Saint Sebastian of Hollywood, bound and beaten by the ruthless and rampant piracy of the Internet that has unforgivingly robbed them blind. It would be a pretty compelling defense against piracy, and it was obviously enough to convince at least some within the ranks of the U.S. government to support their cause.

Like I said, though, it would be a compelling defense. If it were true.

A study commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association and conducted by Michael Masnick, CEO of Floor 64, investigated the economy of the entertainment industry over the past decade and found claims of plunging profits due to piracy to be a crude fabrication. Contrary to the entertainment industry’s claims of lost profits, Masnick postulated that we may actually be “living in a true Renaissance era for content.”

He continued in the report, “More money is being spent overall. Households are spending more on entertainment. And a lot more works are being created.”

Indeed, some of the figures put together by the report create a condemning rebuttal against any claim by the entertainment industry that they’re bleeding money:

Given this sample of the results (and there’s a lot more where those came from), it would appear the old adage that the entertainment industry is “recession-proof” would maintain its truth today. Masnick concurred this point in the report and wrote, “For an industry that claims to be plagued by piracy, this steadfast level of growth during the Great Recession appears to justify the boastful statements of being recession proof.”

So if the megapowers of the entertainment industry are not bleeding money (due to their favorite boogie man, Internet piracy) but are actually rolling deep in the dough, then what are they so angry at the Internet for? I don’t see what they could possibly hope to gain from the ratification of a SOPA-like bill. It’s not like they actually care about the integrity of their work – just look at the last two decades of film in the United States. 95% of their content has been complete sir-reverence, and the past few years seem to have been dominated exclusively by remakes, sequels, and driveling offerings so bland in their creativity that they have to use books and graphic novels as their personaizedl storyboards.

Masnick writes that, for the entertainment industry, “the evidence points to a very optimistic future” but that “it feels like much of the debate about copyright law over the past few decades has been based on claims about the state of an industry that simply don’t match up to reality.” Seriously, though, that’s a good point – why is the MPAA so willfully divorced from reality that they’re trying to convince everybody the entertainment industry is being fleeced when they’re really doing better off than probably any other industry in the United States (or world, for that matter) today? It’s like they’re one of those poor hoarders you see on The Learning Channel, hopelessly squirreling away all their copyrights for a purpose even they themselves can’t quite understand.

I just don’t get it. Why can’t the MPAA and other leaders of the entertainment industry embrace the public’s use of their material? It’s not as if Hollywood is really hurting for money and so, if this study from Masnick and CCIA ever really breaches the surface of the mainstream, it’ll be interesting to watch if the entertainment industry sticks to their blanks-firing pistols or if they’ll resort to another fabricated excuse to justify their greed.

We just want to participate in the culture we live in, MPAA – a culture that you have helped foster around us. For the most part, you’ve helped create a rather crummy culture, but still, we’re here to play around in it and you get to stay rich. Everybody wins. So why does that make you so mad?

Of the 1,000 included in the study, 52% of adult cell phone users said that they used their phone while inside of a brick-and-mortar store to help with their purchasing decisions. Of those adults, one third of them used their phone to look up information about a product online, either to check out reviews or to compare prices. 38% of those adults went for a more personal touch, though, and called a friend to ask for advice.

Regardless of how the cell phone was used, one fact is becoming very salient in our culture: we can’t buy stuff without consulting some kind of third party via the use of our cell phone. In fact, the mere presence of a cell phone in a purse or pocket seems to be affecting the way people decide on their purchases:

Aaron W. Smith, Senior Research Specialist with Pew, said, “These findings show that the growing availability of smartphones and other mobile devices has dramatically changed the shopping experience.” He continued, “Consumers are frequently using their phones to make sure they get the most highly-rated product at the best price, and in many cases they are willing to go elsewhere or delay their purchase until they find the right combination of value and quality.”

Indeed, one in five “mobile price matchers,” as Pew has labelled these cell phoned sales hounds, ultimately opted not to make their purchase at a brick-and-mortar store and instead chose to buy the product from an online store. More, 5% of of all cell phone owners actually looked up a product while inside the physical and then chose to purchase it online. Makes you wonder how much incentive apps like Amazon’s Price Check app really did influence shoppers this past Christmas. The app likely wasn’t creating a new shopping strategy in potential consumers but, rather, simply made it whole lot easier to compare prices and look up reviews while you’re standing in a store.

Still, when only 1 in 10 cell owners who searched for the price of a product while inside a physical store still chose to make their purchase at the store, that’s not good news for brick-and-mortar stores. Did any of you out there resort to such scrutinizing shopping practices this past holiday season? Share your thoughts or experiences below.