How we use our phones is changing in a big way, here’s the data that proves it

Yahoo shared statistics from its mobile analytics company Flurry today at its mobile developer conference in New York City.

The numbers give us interesting insight into how the way we’re using our phones is changing rapidly, particularly surrounding content consumption online.

According to Yahoo’s data, the use of the browser on smartphones is quickly declining. From 2013 to 2015, the company saw the usage time of the mobile browser drop by over 50 percent as they moved to native apps instead.

As browser usage has dropped, native app usage has skyrocketed.

Another slide, pictured above, shows that both Chrome and Safari are used only 4 and 6 percent of the time, while apps like Facebook are used 19 percent of the time.

While browser usage has fallen off a cliff content consumption has exploded in other areas. The company found that media consumption within apps increased by more than 108 percent in just a single year.

Entertainment apps like YouTube have skyrocketed too, seeing a 240 percent increase in time spent using them over the last year.

What’s interesting is the company says consumers are increasingly paying to consume content as mobile advertising revenue begins to slow, with in-app purchases surpassing that of mobile ads (excluding search advertising) for the first time.

I was surprised to see Flurry reporting that mobile gaming is decreasing in prominence, with time spent dropping by 36 percent this year.

Simon Khalaf, Flurry’s President & Chief Executive Officer said that the company believes this is because the mobile gaming industry hasn’t seen any “hit” games in the last 18 months.

“[Smartphone] is the new TV set” said Khalaf, and it’s changing the way we use our phones rapidly.

Read more from the report here.