47% of Consumers Now Engaging in Connected Economy With Younger Demos Leading

The connected economy expands with each new activity consumers perform via digital means, and those are increasing, as the average consumer now engages in 28 digital activities monthly, compared to 24 one year ago.

This and more are detailed in “The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: The Evolving Digital Daily Edition,” our latest study of connected economy engagement, which takes an expansive view of our connected lives as reflected in surveys of over 4,000 U.S. consumers.

On average, 47% of consumers participated in the digital activities we track, which is a high-water mark in this 15-month series. Per the study, “The most significant increase in participation we witnessed year over year was how many consumers used connected devices to manage their homes. Compared to February 2022, 21 million more consumers participated in activities involving some type of smart home device in February 2023, whether they used voice assistants like Google Home, smart thermostats like Ecobee or security systems like Ring. The average participation in these activities stood at 40%, an increase of 31% year over year.”

We observed connected engagement in areas such as commuting, leisure travel, and various forms of communication, with rideshare platforms like Lyft and Uber, and home-sharing site Airbnb, growing 27% in February 2023 compared to the prior year, equaling 18 million more consumers engaging in these daily digital behaviors.

Also on the rise is the use of parking apps, dating apps and home-sharing apps — all of which increased more than 30% year over year — as we also saw with the 31% more consumers who use smart home tech. In summary, engagement in 40 of 70 activities increased by 20% or more.

Fans of the connected economy can thank younger digital-first demographic groups for the increases. As the study states, “More than 60% of millennials and Generation Z consumers used connected, wearable technology at least once per month, with more than one-quarter wearing their devices every single day.”

Additionally, 62% of millennials used a website or app to interact with health providers, compared to 30% of baby boomers and seniors. The older demos showed a preference for marketplaces to browse and purchase retail items (51%), “but still to a much lesser extent than millennials, at 83%, and Gen Z, at 78%.”

Get your copy: The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: The Evolving Digital Daily Edition