A third of users can’t live without their smartphones

A smartphone seems like such an indispensable gadgets nowadays that we’ve seen various studies from the serious to the comic showing that people would give up all sorts of things, but rarely their pocket companions, even for a day. This latest survey by the Online Publishers Association shows that smartphone penetration is not only growing and expected to reach 57% in 2013, but also that a third of users can’t live without their smartphones.

Now, most users however were attached to their laptops and TVs, but the phones (smartphones and feature phones combined) are a close runner-up.

The whole purpose of the study is to show that people do use their smartphones, they use them a lot, read on them and are sometimes even happy to pay for content, all facts that should be reassuring for publishers.

Interestingly, the thing most care about is the weather - 47% are regularly checking on what’s it like outside and next in the list of things we most often do on our smartphones is watching video. The news, be it local, global or sports come third.

There’s a ton more interesting details in the report, though - which gender uses more smartphones, is it something only the wealthy can afford and so on. Check out the slides below to find the answer.

source: Online Publishers Association (PDF) via AllThingsD