Broadband is Top Priority for Vast Majority of Moving UK Students

A new survey of 1,000 UK students, which was conducted by OnePoll on behalf of full fibre ISP Hyperoptic, has claimed that broadband connectivity is a top “priority” for the vast majority (88%) when moving into student housing. Students also spend an average of 55 hours a week online, but just 14 hours of this on work.

As you’d expect most of that online time is split between various familiar tasks. On average, students are spending 14 hours a week on social media, 11 hours streaming TV shows, 6 hours on video gaming, almost 4 hours online shopping, 3 hours on video chats (e.g. Skype) and 2 hours watching “adult entertainment” (it’s probably only viewed a few minutes at a time.. ehumm).

Naturally 69% said that they rely on internet access daily and two thirds would “struggle” without access to it. Likewise 42% said that the majority of their university work requires them to use the internet and almost half think students will no longer need study books in the next 5 years as all resources will be online. Only 15% of those polled “often” use university computers to go online.

Over half of students also said they get easily distracted while studying online and often find themselves not actually getting much done as a result. This has led to two in five going to the library to avoid interruptions and almost a quarter have even tried to block social media accounts and websites to get on with their studies.

The ISP claims it takes on average 51 minutes before students get distracted, and over a third blame social media while a sixth said YouTube was “responsible” (note: the user is ultimately the one most responsible for how they manage their time).

Charles Davies, MD of Hyperoptic, said:

“Technology and how we use it in our daily lives is growing at pace – students predict this will go even further with online resources replacing study books.

The research gives us an insight into the demands of future generations – always online, multi-device households and heavy consumers of streamed video and gaming content; all demonstrating the critical need for fast, reliable full fibre broadband which can be accessed by multiple users and devices without any slow down or loss of connection at peak times.”

End.