Post contributed by Wesley Mills -
According to the Pew Research Center in 2011, 77% of teens had a cell phone and older teens are more likely to have a cell phone, and smartphone at that, than younger ones. Education is also an important factor as teenagers whose parents have high school diplomas are more likely to have cell phones than ones who don’t. Along with education brings income, and those parents make more than $75,000 allow their child to have a 91% chance of owning a cell phone as opposed to parents who make less than $30,000 who only have a 62% chance.
A survey done by Princeton Review Research Associates International polled a representative sample of around 800 teenagers, ages 12-17. One of the main goals of these polls and interviews was to get a good gauge on what percentage of teens were texting and using their mobile devices the most.
According to the Pew Research Center in 2011, 77% of teens had a cell phone and older teens are more likely to have a cell phone, and smartphone at that, than younger ones. Education is also an important factor as teenagers whose parents have high school diplomas are more likely to have cell phones than ones who don’t. Along with education brings income, and those parents make more than $75,000 allow their child to have a 91% chance of owning a cell phone as opposed to parents who make less than $30,000 who only have a 62% chance. Amongst cell phones, smartphones are majorly owned by older teens and the “data suggests a cell phone ownership evolution by age.” Since smartphones are social media friendly, it would only make sense that the majority of smartphone users would be teenagers and those that do have them are using them for purposes such as Twitter and Facebook.As the Pew Research Center report summarized,
“As with adults, smartphone-owning teens are avid users of a number of social media applications—91% of teen smartphone owners use social networking sites, and 25% are Twitter users compared with 77% of teens without smartphones who use social network sites and 13% who use Twitter.”
Source - Teens, Smartphones & Texting, report by Pew Internet & American Life Project
The full study report is available here
Edit track - Added graphic (BJB)