Google Study Reveals the Most Embarrassing Place People Use Voice Search

Google study casts light on how teens, adults use virtual personal assistants.

ByABC News
October 14, 2014, 11:21 AM
A man uses Siri on an iPhone 4S on Oct. 14, 2011 in London, England.
A man uses Siri on an iPhone 4S on Oct. 14, 2011 in London, England.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images

— -- Some people are so friendly with their virtual personal assistants that they even use them in the bathroom, according to a new study commissioned by Google.

Nearly one in four teens surveyed fessed up to using voice search while in the bathroom -- proving just how attached some people have become to their virtual personal assistants.

Google's study, unveiled today, examined attitudes and usage of voice search among 1,400 teens and adults, including the search giant's product, Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana.

"We found that for teens, voice search comes as naturally as checking social media and they're getting very creative about how (and where) they use it," Scott Huffman, Google's vice president for conversational search, said in a statement.

Hands-free search proved to be a popular multi-tasking tool among teens and adults. Of the adults surveyed, 23 percent said they use voice search while cooking. And nearly one-third of adults and half of the teens surveyed copped to using voice search "just for fun."

One activity where teens and adults were similar: watching television. Of the teens surveyed, 59 percent claimed to use hands-free search while watching television, while 36 percent of adults said they do the same.

Huffman said the survey will help Google plot the future of voice search -- allowing people to perhaps one day use it to find elusive objects, such as their remote control or keys.