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U.S. Cell Users Mainly Snap Photos and Surf the Web, Pew Study Finds

by Warren Riddle on July 8, 2010 at 03:45 PM

Instant Messaging on PhoneThe Pew Research Center recently conducted another installment in its Internet and American Life Project. The survey indicates that mobile usage is -- in dramatic fashion -- seamlessly and increasingly integrating with U.S. culture, as cell owners continue to diversify their phone habits, particularly those involving media capabilities.

According to the survey, 40-percent of cell owners now access the Web, IM services or their e-mail accounts from their mobiles, indicating an 8-percent increase from just a year ago. Further demonstrating the proliferation of smartphones, 76-percent of cell owners now use their gadgets to take pictures (up from 2009's 66-percent), 34-percent for gaming (up from 27-percent), 34-percent for recording videos (up from 19-percent), and 33-percent for listening to music (up from 21-percent). Although cell usage has been widely assimilated into pop culture, e-readers remain a niche industry. The survey determined that only 4-percent of U.S. consumers own a tablet device.

Pew's research also revealed that African-Americans and English-speaking Latinos more frequently own cell phones and utilize their phones' various features, including Web access. That Net data seems to correlate with other recent findings, particularly an Internet study by the FCC which determined that those two demographics "trail the average in broadband access."

Not surprisingly, teens and young adults remain the most technologically versed demographic. Among other dominant statistics, 95-percent of 18- to 29-year-old cell owners engage in text discussions, 93-percent take mobile pictures, and 65-percent access the Internet with their gadgets. Older consumers aren't content to just grumble about the rash of newfangled doodads, though, as Pew stated that "older adults are gaining fast" in all of those previously mentioned categories. [From: The Pew Research Center, via: MSNBC]

Tags: cellphones, pew, pew internet and american life project, pew report, PewInternetAndAmericanLifeProject, PewReport, smartphones, study, top

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