The company’s new survey puts on display all the very bad things we do with our phones.
Windows Phone 7 Bad Phone Behavior SurveyMicrosoft does not hate mobile phones, though it clearly hates the way the majority of us are using them.
First, the Redmond software giant launched its “Really?” advertising campaign to support the Windows Phone 7 launch. It depicts people engaging in all manner of brainless and bad behavior while using their cell phones. You already know how I feel about those commercials. Now, in coordination with the official sale of Windows Phone 7 devices in the U.S., Microsoft has released the “Windows Phone 7 Bad Phone Behavior Survey.”
Conducted in coordination with pollster Harris Interactive, the study surveyed 2,024 adults over the age of 18 about their mobile phone-usage habits. The results remind me of when we talk about campaign ads going “all negative.” With these results, Microsoft is trying to prove the benefits of using Windows Phone 7 devices by only talking about the negative or “bad” things everyone does with all other mobile phones.
Best Microsoft MCTS Training – Microsoft MCITP Certification at Certkingdom.com
Here are some highlights:
Everyone hates mobile phones: Okay, not everyone, but roughly three-quarters of the Microsoft/Harris respondents identified bad mobile phone behavior has “one of their top 10 pet peeves.” That’s probably why so few (under 18%) admitted engaging in all that incredibly annoying behavior.
On the other hand, many of these same respondents admit to various mobile phone offences, including using their phone at their own children’s events (53% of parents 35-to-54 years old).
40 percent use the phone in the bathroom. Roughly the same percentage think doing so is a bad idea.
Everyone uses mobile phones in almost all situations: They use their phone to check-out during holidays: either simply to check mail or to literally escape from their current situations (25% of male 18-to-24 search for the nearest bar).
24% admitted to using their phones during a date and the number skyrockets when Microsoft and Harris look at those under 24 years old (40%).
The survey also pulls numbers for inadvertent use of phones in religious ceremonies like the phone ringing during a wedding (24% for 18-to-24-year olds).
These numbers all ring (pun intended) true to me. I’m both a violator (yes, I have used the phone in a bathroom) and the victim (I heard a phone go off repeatedly during a recent Broadway show). And what does this teach us?
Everyone has a cell phone.
They’re always on.
We don’t know how to stop using them.
Having driven the nail home with its “Really?” ad campaign, Microsoft is now, obviously, hammering the hell out of the nail head, in an effort to make a deep impression in the proverbial wood and our psyches: Phones are Bad. We’re Bad. There’s too much Phone-Based Bad Behavior.
Microsoft is right, there is too much, but no phone, not even one as well designed as Windows Phone 7 can change all of that.
Earlier this week, I appeared on This Week in Technology with Leo Laporte and we were talking about violence in video games. I argued, as I have before, that the access to those games has to be managed by the parents. However, as we talked, another guest, Ryan Block of Gdgt worried that we might be ignoring the bigger problem: that kids just don’t get outside and interact. I told them that they are socializing when they play video games (at least when they’re on Xbox Live), adding, “Every piece of technology we have has a social component.” This, of course, includes phones. People are hooked on their cell phones not because the technology is making them do it, but because it’s their primary connection to their own social circle.
In many of these instances of people using their phones in bad or inappropriate ways, they’re often texting; in other words, conversing with someone they know. Alternatively, they might be tweeting or posting something to Facebook. Yes, there’s a fair amount of email use in there, but the biggest offenders in the survey appear to be young adults. They live on the phones because they live through their phones.
Is this a good thing? Should we occasionally put down the phone and live in the moment? Yes. We should. We must. But why isn’t that Microsoft’s message? Why has it chosen to go all negative? Show me the act of getting on my Windows Phone and off of it faster than on the competition. Show people enjoying their lives instead of using the phone all the time (though be sure to show how the phone enabled it). Run a survey that asks what people would do if they were not using their phone.
This negative campaign is, as I’ve said before, exactly the wrong way to market the Windows Phone 7 platform. However with the “Really?” ads and now, this survey, Microsoft shows no signs of changing course.
I think this survey was intended to be humorous, but it doesn’t come off that way. The results make me think Microsoft dislikes that whole genre and will next be encouraging us to give up our phones—and all other technology—in favor of a back-to-nature life style. That’s obviously not Microsoft’s intention and it’s too bad it comes off that way because if people are turned off by this data, they may never learn how a Windows Phone really can help you get back to your life faster.
