Data download grows with phone addiction

If you have noticed more people than ever are wandering around distracted, noses buried in a smartphone, you are right, states James Manning and Vince Chadwick in The Age. . Australians' intensifying addiction to phones as an internet source has been underlined by statistics showing the amount of data downloaded skyrocketed by a third in just six months. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found 32 per cent more information was downloaded on phones between April and June this year than for the final three months of 2011. For computers, the amount of data downloaded in the same period rose by 20 per cent. Advertisement Across Australia there are more than 16 million mobile handsets in use - a 7 per cent increase compared with the end of last year. An Australian Communications Consumer Action Network spokeswoman, Elise Davidson, said more than half the population had a smartphone. Read article in full Image: Flickr/ gailjadehamilton