Teens and Mobile Phones
by Amanda Lenhart, Rich Ling, Scott Campbell, Kristen Purcell
Apr 20, 2010
University of Michigan: Department of Communication Studies
Overview
Daily text messaging among American teens has shot up in the past 18
months, from 38% of teens texting friends daily in February of 2008 to
54% of teens texting daily in September 2009. And it's not just
frequency – teens are sending enormous quantities of text messages a
day. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts
a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than
3,000 texts a month. Older teen girls ages 14-17 lead the charge on
text messaging, averaging 100 messages a day for the entire cohort. The
youngest teen boys are the most resistant to texting – averaging 20
messages per day.
Text
messaging has become the primary way that teens reach their friends,
surpassing face-to-face contact, email, instant messaging and voice
calling as the go-to daily communication tool for this age group.
However, voice calling is still the preferred mode for reaching parents
for most teens.
About the Survey
This study is
based on the 2009 Parent-Teen Cell Phone Survey which obtained
telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 800
teens age 12-to-17 years-old and their parents living in the
continental United States and on 9 focus groups conducted in 4 U.S.
cities in June and October 2009 with teens between the ages of 12 and
18. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates
International. The interviews were done in English by Princeton Data
Source, LLC from June 26 to September 24, 2009. Statistical results are
weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies.
Citation:
Lenhart, A., Ling, R., Campbell, S., & Purcell, K.
(2010, April). Teens and mobile phone. Pew Research Center.