Over 40% of Americans Use Mobile Phones in the Bathroom

The funny thing is, as Americans, we’re lagging a bit behind the rest of the world in this aspect.  Let’s compare against other countries.

-  78% of Japanese use them in the bathroom
-  68% of Taiwanese use their phones while in the bathroom
-  66% of the Chinese population (66% of mobile users in china…think about that!) use them in the bathroom
-  48% of Australians said they use their phones in the bathroom
-  29% of UK mobile phone users use them in the bathroom

This Nokia commercial does a nice of job of reinforcing how pervasive the mobile phone is (the first thing we see in the morning and the last thing we see at night).

So how does this all relate to medical education?  Well, it just shows to what extent our addiction for information is.  We want it, irrespective of wherever we are or whatever we’re doing.   And information, especially where healthcare providers are a key audience, is required quickly and easily.

Still questioning the potential impact of ONE channel like the mobile phone to educate, engage and measure in our space?

Let’s look at some other facts:

-  94% of all text messages are read; and 75% of these are read instantly
-  95% of their subscriber phones are text-enabled
-  About 24% of those mobile users with texting capabilities opt-in to receive promotional text messages
-  Promotional campaigns have shown a 90% higher than average click thru rate from a SMS message

There ‘s even data from other industries (ie, alcohol, automotive, consumer electronics, entertainment, financial services, retail, telecommunications, and travel) that points out how effective mobile messaging is to raising awareness of brands, messages, loyalty etc.

“With an average increase of 23.9 percentage points, mobile ad awareness saw the greatest increase — this shows that these campaigns generally cut through and grab users’ attention. Average increases in brand favorability and purchase intent of 5.4 and 4.7 percentage points, respectively, reflect the ability of mobile advertising to change consumers’ attitudes towards a brand and to drive intent to purchase.”

Source: Dynamic Logic’s AdIndex for Mobile; Early Averages as of July 2008, N=21 campaigns, n=25,050 respondents

In the last sentence, you can easily change “intent to purchase” to “intent to change practice.”  While we shy away from promotional terms/measures in medical education, the implications are obvious.  We can translate any of these measures to the education side (ie, knowledge, attitudes, competencies and performance).

As mobile messaging becomes more common place in our industry, one can’t deny the huge potential such a channel will have on how medical education is provided and measured.  Those medical education providers who move first to integrate the medium will have the most to gain, and now may be the best time to test the water before everyone else starts to jump on the bandwagon.

Note: Because of a lack of data or metrics (actually none at all) on mobile messaging in medical education, data from the mobile marketing and advertising industry was used instead.

For more information on  2digiti, contact us at vg@2digiti.com