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Back during early COVID there were a bunch of people caught out not having anywhere to work from in their home.
That to me suggested a lot about where phone and tablet usage have gone, and where desktop and laptop usage has now gone. It seems a lot people see laptops and computers as specialist devices.
There are at least four computers and three laptops in my house, but not chance my friends have that.
I have a laptop that I use for things that I find too cumbersome for a phone such as writing, things that require multiple tabs, anything official/formal. Oh and also for playing pokemon ROM hacks.
Other than that I find a phone satisfies my day to day needs.
I think a big majority of the general population are phone-only on their own time, and a bunch of those use a PC just for work.
Personally I just use all the computers. I use my phone plenty, and I’m on my work machine all day. Then at home I just put together a nice setup with the desktop’s monitors on arms attached to a big table next to the couch. So I can just be chilling in the family room and swing a monitor over in front of me. It’s made me use the PC a lot more.
I'm on my laptop all the time, and I don't use a smartphone at all. I'm not a luddite, I just don't like the world of smartphones. I enjoy being disconnected when I'm out. I enjoy using an OS that I can control and modify to my heart's content. Am I weird? Do I care? My friends keep forgetting and try to send texts to my landline though, which is annoying. I might replace my landline with a dumb phone, maybe. Ftr, I'm a millenial.
I almost never use my phone, mostly just when I need it for authentication stuff. Computer only for everything else. Hoping to be able to get rid of the phone at some point.
Seems like smartphones are generally used more often than PCs among younger cohorts compared to older. In Britain at least.
That's a very different question. A smartphone can to some degree emulate the other devices listed so when people are asked to pick only one device most are naturally going to choose that even if it's not currently their primary device, and since they could only choose one it's not useful in determining how many people use other devices. It also appears to be a follow-up question asking about second most important devices so it's definitely not useful out of context.
From that survey question alone you cannot reasonably claim which device is used most often.
I'm never on my phone at home except for when sitting on the toilet. 99% of my internet use is either YouTube, Porn or Lemmy and all three are done better on a desktop/laptop. My phone is for podcasts, texting/calls and photography.
In my neck of the woods: phone only for the vast majority of people.
Even people who use a computer professionally at work don't use one at home.
The only people with home computers I know of are millennials who grew up with them. Younger and older simply don't have computers at all in their lives. Nobody can type anymore.
Monitor and keyboards won't disappear, but it will become more niche with time. It won't be a universal experience like it used to be.
I have an inexpensive desktop plugged into my tv, for watching shows and movies. My laptop is my main computer, plugged in to a monitor and surround speakers. My phone is for laying on the couch scrolling brainrot.
Ubuntu Debian Linux desktop is the best. Friends don't let friends use windows.
I use a desktop or laptop computer almost daily in my personal life. Mobile devices are terrible for actual productivity. And security. And usability.
And security
Disagree.
Sure, privacy wise, you can say that they are terrible (freedom wise, they are not great either). But Security? Phones are probably the most secure devices (as long as you keep them updated). Verified Boot, Sanboxing for every app, Strict Permission Control, Default Encryptions, Limiting Password attempts per X amount of time, to make brute force difficult, and can even attempt to wipe itself if too many incorrect password entry. Even if an app is malicious, all you need to do is uninstall it and most of the time they do not persist.
Most desktop installations require admin or sudo permissions, one malicious program/package and you gotta wipe clean and reinstall.
Cameras and microphones that have no physical disconnect. Virtual keyboards. NSA subsidies for cheap phones sold in poor areas. Zero visibility or access to OS components without special steps.
Windows let users install and run any junk binary to their appdata folder by default. That's why cryptolocker got real popular around 2010. Granted this isn't supporting my point, but admin is not required in a lot of instances.
I guess I'm saying I disagree with your disagreement. Non-mobile is far more secure. My desktop and laptops do all of the stuff you listed as mobile capabilities.
Again, the government surveillance aspect is more of a privacy issue. Yea, I hate how intrusive the government is, but, from a purely security perspective, if your threat model isn't targeted surveillance by the government (which for most people, that's not their threat model), if you think about how much technical knowlege the average person has, a smart phone does a better job protecting them from the every day security threats than a computer.
NSA subsidies for cheap phones sold in poor areas.
Cheap smartphones are subsidized by the "recommended apps" screen that phone manufacturers add, that app developers/publishers paid for so that their app is listed during the phone's set up process, that's why they are so cheap.
Drawing a distinction between privacy and security is kind of nonsense in this context. While they are technically different, they're only different in the way that an apple and a fruit are different. Privacy is an aspect of security.
If your privacy was violated in any other context you would not feel secure.
I volunteer at the public library. Almost all the people who come in are phones only, and totally lost on a PC. They come in to fill out gov't PDFs that won't open on their phones and to print stuff out. My classmates, in the IT program (!) have a lot of trouble navigating on their laptops, and only a couple of us have desktops at all.
Who goes into IT without knowing how to use a computer?
Probably the old assumption “there’s money in computers” is still guiding some people into the wrong field.
People hear that it's a higher paying office job that has a low barrier for entry, not realizing that continuing education and constant learning are mandatory. If you don't have a passion for it, you struggle.
I ask myself that on a regular basis.
Lemmy is not the demographic to ask this question. You're definitely skewed towards using a desktop/laptop here.
I'm a software/data engineer, so for work I obviously use a computer all the time. I also have a very nice personal computer but it doesn't get as much use anymore as it used to. I play the occasional game on it, use it for tracking our budget/finances and stuff once a month, manage my plex server, and do the occasional random task on it that requires things like typing or photo editing. But it's not been getting a lot of attention since I finished school, even less since having my daughter. Also I have automated a lot of my tasks so that I don't need to manage it as much.
My phone is my main device for most of my entertainment, web surfing, news reading, banking, etc. plus it keeps my todos/shopping lists, my wife and I's shared calendar, my alarms, digital coupons for groceries, GPS... all of my regular day to day task helpers. Not to mention is takes and stores my photos, allows me to call and text people, and gives me mobile access to my cloud files and services. It's definitely my primary device.
But I still love my desktop and wish I had more time to do my own work on it.
Mostly desktop, at least at home. I have 3 laptops and a desktop at work. Phone is for googling, doomscrolling, music, and light reading.
I think I use my phone mostly, by time spent, not counting work. Important things I usually do on my desktop. If I had my druthers I’d have more time to spend on the desktop instead of the phone, but I’ve got two young kids so I can only do so much
I work from home, so I have a decent setup in my office involving a MacBook Pro and two monitors.
I also have an iPad that I draw with and when I’m not drawing on it I hook it to my soundbar and play music and podcasts while I work.
Phone all of the rest of the time.
People are responding personally in this thread, which does not answer the actual question being asked. Lemmizens are very far from most people.
I'd be shocked if most people had PCs any more - at best, an old laptop to lug out for "paperwork."
I mostly use my Pix8 phone, but I have a few computers. Primary is a Thinkpad T410, about 13 years old, Win 10. Another T410 that's a media player for the TV, Win 7. A Thinkpad R52 on Win XP, music player, feeds a Sony amp & decent speakers. An Acer desktop, Win7, games, big screen. An old Chromebook just for watching TV & movie mp4s, at work. Two Dell lappy Win 11s, provided and controlled by the employer. Work only.
They just keep working, why change? I only bought one of these new.
Not all of these connect directly to the net.
No one would keep all this trash if they had at least one good one.
They all serve their purpose, all in different locations, and most of them never move. I can appreciate this would not be your choice, but it works for me. And thanks for shitting on me, it's been great.
I am also on team old thinkpads. What I use computers for doesn't require recent hardware.
My wife heavily uses her smartphone. Like, she'll work on spreadsheets on her phone instead of grabbing her laptop.
I'm the opposite. I try to use my phone as little as possible.
I cannot imagine working on spreadsheets on a smartphone. I’m getting a stress headache thinking about it.
I use my iPhone and MacBook equally. It is extremely rare that I use my actual tv.
I use my computer for pretty much everything but I have a projector so that shit is up on my wall.
Desktop computer mainly, sometimes a laptop. Tablets are painful to use IMO
Phone is for work only. Tower PC for everything else.
I'm probably an outlier.
The blue collar people I know only use a phone for personal computing, I have a spare laptop I lend to co workers so they can complete CBT and badging if a phone won't cut it.
More than once I've had both my personal laptop and the loaner at a jobsite so the crew can get badged quicker.
In the BDSM community CBT stands for cock & ball torture.
Some of the training matches
In the mental health community CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Damn, I haven't heard about using a laptop for CBT but that shit probably hurts - that's gonna be a wide surface area for impact.
My brain: Uncomfortable image of slamming the lid shut
Shit, I just thought of using it as a flat bludgeoning object... I think you have a future as a kinksmith. That's the special kind of creative thinking.
I use Lemmy and Tumblr on my phone; but I use my computer for gaming quite a bit.
I only use smartphone when i have to. I still make lot of typos on my phone and i am typing slow
i see more and more mobile-only households all the time. and people with landline internet at home that has never seen a pc. only televisions, phones and tablets. an increasing number of people don't even have that, they live off their cell phone's internet.
personally, i'm 'desktop only'. my phone i use only as a phone. i have no tablet, no watch, no gaming console. my laptops never leave home, they're just 'small desktops'. when i need one, i grab some spare junk from the office to take to a site.