Seventy-three percent of people in the U.S. say their phone is always with them. And nearly half say that they check their phone more than 30 times a day, with that percentage increasing to 62% for millennials, according to research conducted by Facebook.
But people don’t just consume a lot of content on mobile devices throughout the day — they also process it faster. Twitter eye-tracking research has found that across all demographics, people consume content faster on mobile devices than on desktop computers. Facebook testing confirmed this finding: On average, people consume mobile content on Facebook faster than on a desktop (1.7 seconds vs. 2.5 seconds).
Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all also found that scrolling speed varies by age, with younger people moving more quickly through their feeds.
Lightning-fast retention
Content viewed quickly can still break through and be memorable. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook found that the recall of messages can occur in very short amounts of time — even in the first second.