In more of a telling comment on the economic situation than was perhaps intended, 18-24s have emerged as the age group least likely to have a tablet in research by app analytics firm Flurry. Making up 14 per cent of tablet owners, the demographic comes behind both the 13-17 year olds (19 per cent)  and the over-55s (17 per cent).

In a study of 30m opted-in users, Flurry found 25-34s are the most likely to own both a smartphone and tablet. The average age of a smartphone owner is 30, compared to 34 for a tablet.

Tablet owners are more likely to be the over-35s than the under-24s, according to Flurry’s data analytics, and men are more likely to own smartphones (56 per cent) while the tablet split is almost even – 51 to 49, in favour of men.

Of more than 6bn app sessions analysed, across approximately 500m smart devices, a huge bias towards gaming was revealed – the activity taking up 67 per cent of time spent on tablets, and 39 per cent of time on smartphones. Social networking was second on both devices – representing 24 per cent of time on smartphones, but only 10 per cent of time on tablets. Not so surprising, if the Facebook generation can only look enviously at their parents’ new toy.

Sessions unsurprisingly last twice as long than on tablets than on smartphones – 8.2 mins compared to 4.1mins – but smartphones are still used more often – with apps used 12.9 times per week, compared to 9.5 times.