Pew Internet reports verall, 62% of adult Americans have either accessed the
internet with a wireless connection away from home or work or used a
non-voice data application using their cell phone or PDA, according to
the Pew Internet Project's December 2007 survey. It also found:
digital assistant (PDA) to do at least one of ten mobile non-voice data
activities, such as texting, emailing, taking a picture, looking for
maps or directions, or recording video.
that is, away from home or work either with a wireless laptop
connection or a handheld device.
The report reveals that it would be harder for most people to give up their cell phones than TVs or the internet.
Researchers found that 51 percent of respondents who use wireless
phones said it would "be very hard to give up" their cell phone versus
45 percent and 43 percent for whom ditching the Internet or television
would be a struggle.
Disconnecting their land lines would be tough for 40 percent of
those with a home phone, while going without e-mail and a wireless
e-mail device would be too much to bear for 37 percent and 36 percent
of the users surveyed, respectively.
The data for this report was gathered through telephone interviews
conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between October 24,
2007 and December 5, 2007, among a sample of 2,058 adults, aged 18 and
older, with 500 respondents contacted on their cell phones. The sample
has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
"People's growing reliance on their cell phones, together with wireless
internet access from laptops, suggests a shift in expectations about
cyberspace," said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew
Internet Project and author of the report. "For many people, access to
digital information and resources is an 'always present' utility for
answering questions and documenting what is going on around them
through photos or video recording."
Overall, 75% of all American adults say they own cell phones. Here's
how the data breaks out when looking at non-voice data activities
people access from their cell phones or personal digital assistants
(PDA), with percentage represented as a share of those with cell phones
or PDAs.
their handheld device for such information access, with 7% saying they
do this on the average day.
3% say they shoot a video on their cell phone on the typical day.
Young adults (those between the ages of 18 and 29) are most
likely, on a typical day, to use their cell phone or PDA to access a
non-voice data application; 73% with wireless handheld devices do so.
This compares to the average of 42% of those with cell phones or PDAs
who use a non-voice data application on their devices on the typical
day.
More striking is use among African Americans and Latinos. Some 56% of
English-speaking Hispanics with a wireless handheld device use a
non-voice data or information application on the average day, and 50%
of African Americans with wireless handhelds do so. These groups lagged
in "desktop" online access in the late 1990s and early part of the
decade, but the report shows a very different pattern for wireless
access on the go. African Americans and English-speaking Hispanics are
more likely than white Americans to use cell phones or PDAs for
non-voice data applications.
The report also suggests that email is alive and well, even though
sending text-messages is very popular, especially among young adults.
On the average day, 60% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 with
cell phones or PDAs send or receive text messages, while about the same
share (62%) of internet users in this age group send or receive email
on the typical day.
"Notwithstanding predictions of email's demise, it remains an important
part of people's electronic communications, even among users of
text-messaging," Horrigan said. "The different tools may serve
different functions - with texting a way to stay in touch with friends,
and email more oriented to officialdom, such as communicating with
co-workers or institutions."
The report also documents how many Americans have connected to the
internet with a laptop or other wireless-enabled device away from home
or work. Some 52% of internet users have done this at some point. Usage
patterns for this type of wireless access (e.g., logging on to WiFi
networks) are similar to those for non-voice data access using cell
phones or PDAs, with young Americans, blacks, and English-speaking
Hispanics being the most likely users of wireless while away from home
or work.
Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit, non-partisan
initiative of the Pew Research Center that produces reports exploring
the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work
place, schools, health care, and civic/political life. Support for the
Pew Internet Project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.