Mobile

Six-in-ten app downloaders have chosen not to install an app when they discovered how much personal information the app required in order to use it.

Analysis of over 1 million apps in Google’s Android operating system in 2014 shows apps can seek 235 different kinds of permissions from smartphone users. The average app asks for five permissions.

Smartphone and tablet ownership continues to rise, while the adoption of some digital devices has slowed and even declined in recent years.

Our "always-on" mobile connectivity is changing the nature of public spaces and social gatherings. It's also rewriting social norms of what is rude and what is acceptable behavior.

For many Americans, cellphones are always present and rarely turned off. This creates new social challenges, as people believe that different public and social settings warrant different sensitivities for civil behavior.

It may seem as if basic or flip phones are a thing of the past, given that 73% of teens have a smartphone. But that still leaves 15% of teens who only have a basic cellphone and 12% who have none at all, and it makes a difference in the way each group communicates.

36% of adult smartphone owners use messaging apps, while 17% use apps that automatically delete sent messages. These types of apps are adding to an already complex terrain of digital and social communication. Meanwhile, social media platforms continue to attract dedicated users.

Texting is the most common and frequent way that teens communicate with all types of friends, but they haven’t abandoned phone calling – especially among their closest friends.

Circa is the latest casualty of a fragile digital news scene that is by no means immune to the risks facing startups in general.