Throne surfing: a new Australian pastime

One in three Australians admit to surfing the internet on their smartphone whilst sitting on the toilet, according to a Nielsen study commissioned by Telstra.

The Telstra Smartphone Index, a survey of 2800 Australians over the age of 18, found that one in three admit to what Telstra terms "throne surfing" - a colloquialism for downloading whilst, er, downloading.

On more serious matters, 36 percent of the 2800 respondents owned a mobile phone they considered to be a ‘smartphone'. Telstra defined a smartphone as a mobile phone with "internet capabilities, access to emails, a ‘qwerty' keyboard or touch screen, and an ability to open documents and download applications or software."

The most common sites visited on smartphones on a weekly basis were internet search pages (62 percent), webmail (61 percent), news sites (49 percent), maps (36 percent) and online banking (34 percent).

One in three users said they accessed email more often on their smartphone than their PC, one in four said the same for social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and one in ten for online banking.

One in five admit to having used a smartphone whilst driving a vehicle.

Heavy smartphone users were more likely to be male and in the age bracket 16-29.

The index "suggests smartphones are beginning to eclipse PCs as the preferred way of accessing certain online content," Telstra consumer executive director Rebekah O'Flaherty said in a statement.

Telstra, sponsor of the research, has placed huge bets on mobile data growth to arrest declining fixed line revenues.