'Pointless' mobile internet shunned by Brits

At half time, all their clothes fell off
At half time, all their clothes fell off

You may be reading this on your iPhone while downloading a movie and emailing your mates, but you're in the minority, according to a survey from price comparison website moneysupermarket.com.

It asked over 2000 Brits about their mobile internet experiences and got a resounding thumbs down.

Although nearly three quarters of users have internet capabilities on their phones, less than a quarter actually use it.

Cost and speed were big issues, with 70 per cent saying they had no idea how much it would cost and 24 per cent reporting that mobile surfing was too slow. One in eight actually called mobile internet 'pointless'.

Mobile pr0n takes 5 minutes of the average's man week

Luckily, not everyone is wistful for the days of telegrams and carrier pigeons. 11 million Brits do use the mobile internet, with men averaging 16 minutes a week (yes, a week!) online, and women 11 minutes.

Email accounts for a third (35 per cent) of internet use, closely followed by - you guessed it - surfing for adult content, which makes up 30 per cent of all online activity.

I suppose this only goes to prove that when it comes to naughtiness, the limited size of most mobile screens really doesn't matter.

Also rans include news (28 per cent), sport (24 per cent), maps (22 per cent) and social networking with just 16 per cent.

Mark Harris is Senior Research Director at Gartner.

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