Finns rank top in net usage on smartphones

ON THE crowded morning metro in Helsinki, silence prevails. Everyone is hunched over their smartphone screens, reading the news, checking e-mails or watching videos.

The quiet is broken by a delighted screech from a toddler whose mother has just handed him her smartphone to calm him down with a video. Finland, once a world leader in mobile telephony with Nokia, is in a class of its own when it comes to internet usage on smartphones and tablets, thanks to cheap subscription plans.

In the first half of 2016, Finns used nearly twice as much mobile data on portable devices as South Koreans, who came second in a recent comparison of 32 European and Asian countries by Swedish telecommunication specialist Tefficient.

Finns spend so much time on their phones that authorities are concerned: the city of Helsinki recently launched a campaign telling parents to get their priorities straight.

In a controversial video that angered many parents, a raven carries away a little girl on a beach while her mother focuses on her smartphone, followed by the message: “Negligence is modern-day violence.”

Offended Helsinkians flooded the city with negative feedback, accusing it of criticising all phone usage, and especially women by depicting only the child’s mother in the video.

But the city said it was intended to highlight the fact that some mothers spend too much time on their smartphones instead of playing with their children, and that some fathers are largely absent from their children’s lives.

The country’s largest operator, Elisa, says Finnish parents are following in the footsteps of their teenage children, who have led the way in recent years in consuming more and more internet content on the go.

Several factors may explain the love of smartphones.

Since the golden days of Nokia, Finland’s former business crown jewel and once the world’s top handset maker, Finns have been keen to adopt new technology.

Harsh, cold winters require good infrastructure, and Finland early on built nationwide mobile networks offering good coverage. And Finns are often considered taciturn with an introverted nature, and some admit preferring to keep in touch with friends and family over the internet instead of a phone call.

For a nation of 5.5 million, there are 10.9 million mobile connection plans in Finland – nearly two per inhabitant.

Tefficient’s comparison found that in the Netherlands, where operators charged the most for a gigabyte of mobile data, it cost 14 times more than in Finland, where it was the cheapest of all 32 countries surveyed.

More than half of all phone and tablet connections in Finland come with an unlimited data plan for a fixed monthly price, meaning consumers can browse on their phones as much as they like without having to fear a monster bill at the end of the month. — AFP