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Friday, April 3, 2015

More Young Adults Own Smartphones

The largest cohort of smartphone owners can be found on a college or university campus.

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, the 18-29 age group comprises the single biggest block of smartphone-toting adults in the U.S., with 85% of them owning at least one smartphone.

Even the highest-income crowd (adults earning more than $75,000 per year) is only at 84% smartphone ownership.

Overall, 7% of U.S. adults with smartphones rely on those devices as the sole source for Internet access. However, young adults are even more dependent on their smartphones, with 15% saying this is the only means they have for getting online at home. It’s not clear from the survey, though, whether this group can’t afford broadband service or they simply don’t want to mess around with larger devices at home.

As you might expect, young adults use their smartphones for a wide variety of purposes, apart from making calls. About 44% told Pew they have accessed educational content via the phone and 70% engage in online banking through the phone. More than a third have even submitted a job application by using their phone. All of them send and receive text messages.

However, entertainment is often the allure for many young adults. Some 91% said they used their smartphones for social networking, music, and videos. And when older adults complain about the younger folks always being on their phones and ignoring everyone around them—they should know that 47% of young adults said they do it deliberately to avoid contact.