While the percentage who access status update apps via a wireless device remains relatively low, the study reveals that adults tap into technology to do a variety of other tasks. Fifty-four percent have used their mobile device to send someone a photo or video, 23% have accessed a social networking site, 20% watched a video, and 15% posted a photo or a video online. A smaller number -- 11% -- admit to purchasing at least one product using their mobile phone, and 11% say they made a charitable donation through a text message.
Aaron Smith, Pew research specialist, points to the growing number of adults ages 30 to 49 who access the Internet through mobile devices. Seniors are the group with the lowest levels of wireless Internet use. Eight in 10 seniors ages 65 and older are either Internet users who do not go online wirelessly or do not go online at all. "Aside from older adults, we also noticed a lot of growth among lower-income households, too, something that we hadn't necessarily seen before," he says.
Income and education makes a difference. Seventeen percent of those earning less than $30,000 per year are mobile-phone-only users, as are 20% who have not graduated from high school and 15% of those who graduated from high school but not attended college. It makes sense that people earning less income would have only have a mobile phone.
The study also finds that the use of non-voice data applications has grown in the past year. Taking pictures with a camera mobile phone tops the list. In May 2010, 76% of survey participants admit to taking pictures from their camera phone, up from 66% in April 2009. Sending and receiving text messages followed, with 72% and 65%; accessing the Internet, 38% and 23%; playing a game, 34% and 27%; sending or receiving email, 34% and 25%; recording a video, 34% and 19%; playing music, 33% and 21%; and sending or receiving instant messages, 30% and 20%, respectively.
People are going online via mobile devices more frequently. Forty-three percent of adult mobile phone Internet users go online through their device several times daily, up from 37% in September 2009, and 24% in April 2009; followed by 12% once daily, up from 15% and 12%; and 8% three to five times weekly, up from 9% and 10%, respectively.
When it comes to data applications, African-Americans and Latinos outpace Caucasians on handheld devices, a trend that Pew first identified in 2009. Sixty-four percent of African-Americans and 63% of Latinos use the wireless Internet. It turn out that minorities living in America are significantly more likely to own a mobile phone than are their Caucasians counterparts.
African-Americans and Latinos tend to take advantage of more types of data functions, compared with Caucasian cell phone owners. Eighty-seven percent of African-Americans and English-speaking Hispanics own a cell phone, compared with 80% of whites, according to Pew.
This year, for the first time, Pew asked survey participants whether they own a tablet such as an iPad, and 3% said "yes." About six in 10 of the 3 percent who own tablets use their device to access the Internet. Given the small amount of tablet owners, these findings are not detailed in the study.
About 2,252 adults participated in the study, conducted through telephone interviews between April 19 and May 30, 210.
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