Neal's Notes

A few months ago, the renowned Pew Research Center launched the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Telephone interviews of 2,252 adults ages 18 and older (including 744 reached via mobile) were conducted between April 29-May 30.

Overall, the results produced nothing earth shattering or game changing, but many of the findings further illustrated a number of handset trends.

Here a few:

Minority Americans are setting the pace when it comes to mobile access, especially via handset devices. African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to own a cell phone than their white counterparts (87% for both; compared to 80% for whites). Both minority groups also take advantage of a much wider array of their phones’ data functions compared to white cell phone owners.

Not surprisingly, 90% of 18-29 year olds own a cell phone and are more likely than those in other age groups to utilize mobile data applications discussed as part of the survey.

Some significant stats for this age group: 
• 95% send/receive text messages
• 93% use their phone to take pictures
• 81% send photos or videos to others
• 65% access the Internet on their mobile device
• 60% use their phones to play games or record a video

And some interesting percentages on the low-end:
• 21% have used a status update service such as Twitter from their phone
• 20% have purchased something using their mobile phone
• 19% have made a charitable donation by text message

The findings also indicated that while overall cell phone ownership has remained steady (82% of all American adults own a cell phone), the use of mobile data applications has jumped markedly as you can see in the above visual:

Figures gleaned for seven additional cell phone data applications also revealed some interesting numbers:
• 54% have used their mobile device to send someone a photo or video
• 23% have accessed a social networking site using their phone
• 20% have used their phone to watch a video
• 15% have posted a photo or video online
• 11% have purchased a product using their phone
• 11% have made a charitable donation by text message
• 10% have used their mobile phone to access a status update service such as Twitter

More than half of mobile web users go online from their phones on a daily basis.

A direct quote from the study:

“In addition to being a growing proportion of the overall cell phone population, users of the mobile web now go online more frequently using their handheld devices than they did as recently as last year. More than half of all mobile Internet users go online from their handheld devices on a daily basis – 43% do so several times a day, and 12% do so about once a day. At a similar point in 2009, just 24% of mobile Internet users went online several times a day.”

The survey added that among mobile Internet users, frequency of use was highest among the affluent and well-educated.