More Than Half of Americans Use Cellphones to Get Information Right Away

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project recently unveiled a report titled “Americans and their cell phones.” Among the key findings is that more than half of adult cellphone owners have used their phones at least once to get necessary information right away. One of the quirkier findings is that 13 percent of cellphone owners have pretended to be using their phones in order to avoid interacting with people around them.

The report found that 73 percent of cellphone owners use their phones for text messaging – 92 percent of smartphone owners and 59 percent for other cellphone owners. The same numbers applied to taking photos with mobile phones.

Meanwhile, 54 percent of cellphone owners send photos or videos to others (80 percent of smartphone owners, 36 percent of other cellphone owners), while 44 percent access the Internet (84 percent of smartphone owners, 15 percent of other smartphone owners).

Seventy-six percent of smartphone owners send or receive email with their mobile devices, while 10 percent of other cellphone owners do this. Other popular activities included playing games (64 percent of smartphone owners, 14 percent of other cellphone owners), playing music (64 percent/12 percent) and recording video (59 percent/15 percent).

Of the 12 mobile activities Pew asked respondents about in both May 2010 and May 2011, five grew by a “statistically significant amount”: sending a photo or video to someone (36 percent to 54 percent), accessing the Internet (38 percent to 44 percent), sending or receiving email (34 percent to 38 percent), watching a video (20 percent to 26 percent) and posting a photo or video online (15 percent to 22 percent).

Not surprisingly younger cellphone owners were especially active, with users 18-29 years old participating more in all 14 activities covered by the 2011 survey than their older counterparts.

The report also found that 51 percent of cellphone users used their phones to get information they needed right away. Also, 42 percent have used their cellphones when they were bored, and 40 percent used their cellphones in an emergency situation where their phone was very helpful.

Despite the resourcefulness of these devices, 29 percent of respondents said they turned their phone off for a period of time to get a break from using it.

On the other hand, 20 percent of cellphone owners experienced frustration because their phone took too long to download something, while 16 percent had difficulty reading something on their phone’s small screen and 10 percent had difficulty entering a lot of text on their phones.

Meanwhile, 30 percent of cellphone owners 18-29 have pretended to use their phones to avoid interacting with people around them, along with 11 percent of owners 30-49, 6 percent of owners 50-64 and 2 percent of owners 65+.

Source:

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2011/Cell%20Phones%202011.pdf