Millennials Survey Finds ‘Disconnect’ Between Content Consumption, Storage Capacity

Three in every four millennials routinely delete content to free up storage space on their smartphones and later regret it, a survey for Western Digital found. The company commissioned research firm Vanson Bourne to canvass 5,000 consumers aged 16 to 24 in the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S. to analyze how people “create, consume, share and store digital content,” it said in a report. Though many described content on their smartphones as “priceless,” sacrificing a picture or video to free up storage space on the device “is a regular occurrence,” it said. Thirty-one percent said they run out of space on their smartphones on a weekly basis, while 17 percent say this is a daily problem, the company said. “Running out of storage space isn't the greatest challenge threatening mankind at the moment, but it's certainly an annoyance for a great many consumers," it said. "Our findings clearly show that consumers are sacrificing precious memories and valuable content to make more space on their devices." A big reason why deleting content is so prevalent is millenials’ preference for digital forms of media over physical content, it said. “Of the respondents, 48 percent prefer digital versions of music albums compared to 25 percent preferring the hard copy,” it said. “The same goes for films,” with 41 percent of respondents preferring a digital copy versus 29 percent for DVD or Blu-ray, it said. “With an average of five music albums, five feature films and five television shows being downloaded each week by the consumers in the study, it's clear a huge amount of digital media is being consumed.” The findings “support the notion that there is a disconnect among the majority of consumers over how much digital content they consume and create and how much storage they own and need,” the company said Thursday.