Do you feel cool when you use Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) voice search or do you consider yourself to be a nerd?
A new study commissioned by the search engine juggernaut looked into how often adults and kids use Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google. It discovered that users tend to believe they’re a part of the wave of the future with these new gadgets whereby users simply talk into their smartphone.
The study found that 55 percent of teenagers – between the ages of 13 and 18 – use voice search daily, while 41 percent of adults use it each day. More than half (56 percent) of the adults said they felt both “tech savvy” and “like a geek” when talking into their phone asking for assistance to complete common tasks or find out some information.
Despite some of the feelings respondents had regarding voice search, two-thirds think the function is neat, and an overwhelming majority of respondents say it will be “very common in the future.”
“Voice search is a key feature of the Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) app that’s becoming even more important as people spend more time on their mobile phones,” said Scott Huffman, Google’s Vice President for Conversational Search, in a statement. “We wanted to learn more about how people of all ages use Google hands-free on their phones. We found that for teens, voice search comes as naturally as checking social media and they’re getting very creative about how (and where) they use it.”
What do users utilize voice search for? Here are a few of the study’s findings:
- 51 percent of teens and 32 percent of adults use voice search “just for fun.”
- 41 percent wish voice search could tell them where the channel changer is located.
- 40 percent use voice to get directions.
- 39 percent dictate text messages through the voice feature.
- 22 percent of teens use voice search in the bathroom.
In a recent Stone Temple Consulting Corporation study, Google defeated Siri and Cortana in a voice personal assistant comparison.
