25% of Metro youths stuck on cell phones - survey

MANILA, Philippines - A quarter of young Metro Manila residents say they cannot live without their mobile phones, according to a new survey.

Digital-savvy Filipinos also have the highest rates of DVD player-ownership across Asia, at 73 percent, and second highest digital video camera-ownership, at 24 percent.

Mobile phones are the most important device for 67 percent of young Filipinos, the Young Asians 2010 Survey – conducted by global research agency Synovate – showed. The survey covered 874 Metro Manila residents between eight and 24 years old.

Other top-rated items are desktop computers and MP3 players, with 19 percent and 17 percent of Filipino respondents rating these most important, respectively.

Student Zaldy Afable, 17, counted his mobile phone as his most important digital device. He has had a phone for six years.

“My cell phone is more important than an iPod. I use if for communication and more important things,” he said.

But university student Justine Joy Ventura, 16, said her mobile phone was not as important as the Internet, which she used regularly for research.

She had had a phone, which she rated as her second most important digital tool, since she was nine. “It’s the most efficient way in communicating to my family.”

More young Filipinos sent mobile SMS messages to communicate with parents than youth from any of the other 10 other countries surveyed, at almost half those asked.

Filipino youth have many people to choose from when sending messages – with the third-highest number of contacts in their address books with an average of 102. Indonesian youth had an average 131 contacts and Singapore youth an average 108 contacts.

The survey showed the most important devices to young Asians are televisions, at 30 percent; followed by cellular phones, at 26 percent; and the Internet, at 18 percent.

The other countries surveyed were China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.