Mining PEW - Teens, Smartphones & Texting

Lenhart, Amanda.  (2012).  Teens, smartphones & texting. Pew Research Center,  1-34.    
      Retrieved from:  http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Teens-and-smartphones.aspx

     Today, mostly every teenager owns some kind of cell phone.  They use them to text, call, or go on the internet.   They are no longer spending as much time talking to their friends on landlines or going to personally visit people. In 2011, the Pew Research Center did some research to examine the tools that teens use to communicate.  They focused on mobile devices and how teens choose to communicate with the people in their lives.  They surveyed about 799 teens from the ages of 12-17 with their parents permission.

     I found it interesting that at that time, 77% of teens owned a cell phone.  I bet if they conducted this research again in the year 2014 they would probably find that percentage to be about 90%.  It is rare to see a teenager that does not have a phone attached to his hands.  This research also found that teens were most likely to own a phone if their parents went to college or had some college hours.  If they did not have a high school diploma, it was most likely that a teen did not own a phone.  They also found that when it came to ethnicity Latino teens were 18% less likely to own a phone, but the group that had the lower percentages of owning a phone were the younger teen boys.  The Pew Research Center took this a step further and conducted surveys on the community types.  They found out that if you lived in the suburbs teens were more likely to own a phone.

     In 2011, 23% of teens had smartphones.  I think since then, there has been a smartphone revolution.  In our school, it is rare to see a student with a regular phone, unless they were being punished for not taking care of their smartphones.  I wonder what percentage it would be now if Pew Research Center conducted this survey again?  In the teens that they surveyed, the older teens ages 16-17 were most likely to have a smartphone, and of those teens ages 16-17, those with the parents who were college educated had the higher probability to own a smartphone.  I think this statement makes sense since the more educated parent will most likely have the means to afford a smartphone especially in the year 2011.
     
     When Pew Research Center conducted their survey, it was most likely that smartphone owners used their phones to go on the internet in the last 30 days.  Again, these numbers astonish me because today's teens are always on the internet, and it is difficult to get them off.  I just think it is so amazing how three years can make such a huge difference in technology trends.  This research also showed that those teens who own smartphones were most likely to go online through desktops, Mp3 players, game consoles, or a tablet computer.  I guess this would seem logical since earlier I mentioned that those kids with parents with higher education were mostly likely to own a smartphone, so they would probably be able to afford to buy them other tech devices that have the capabilities of going online.


     I believe that when teens are constantly online in their private phones or computers, they are likely to go into places that they are not supposed to.  Luckily, these devices have parental controls.  According to this research only 34% of parents use these parental controls.  I don't think that the teenager would like the restrictions, but it will help the parent feel more at ease being able to limit what their teenagers can see in the ever so unrestricted world wide web.

     The Pew Research Center has found that the majority of the teens that were surveyed exchange texts daily with others, and half of those, exchange daily texts with their friends.  This has not changed from the years 2009-2011.  I think those numbers might be considerably different nowadays.  Many teens spend many hours texting with friends even during the school day.  In the 2009-2011 survey, it said that teens text about 50 messages in 2009 with an increase to 60 in 2011.  The group with the higher percentages were the older girls.  They had a median of 100 text messages a day.  Boys of the same age only text about 50 text a day.

     It was also found in this research that those teens who were the heavy texters were more likely to to talk more frequently on their phones, 69%.  The heavy texters were not only using their phones to call people, they were also using landlines.  It was also found that these group of teens were also more likely to spend time with people outside of the school environment.  They were also more likely to use social network sites.  I guess they are saying that teens who are constantly texting are very social in network sites and in face-to-face conversations.  It was also found that teens that are heavy texters are most likely to own a smartphone and are the least likely to have a computer at home.  I think that explains why they are always texting and are constanly online on their phones.

     Today, teens are still calling using their phones to call their friends, but the use of regular landlines is on a decline.  It was found in 2009-2011 by the Pew Research center that 5% of teens use landlines to call their friends and 20% of the teens surveyed said they do not use landlines at all or unable to do so.  I think the way technology is going, there is little use for landlines anymore.  Many people just opt to do away with them since they have their cell phones.  A landline is no longer a requirement to connect to the internet so more and more people are staying away from them.  I have asked my students if they have a phone at the house.  It is unbelievable but many students have said they do not have a home phone or ask what that is!
    

     About 1 in 20 teens use location based services.  They let their friends and family know where they are by using services such as Foursquare or Gowalla.  Other sites where you can give out your location is Twitter and Facebook, and since 2011, I am sure there are hundreds more apps or sites that have the capability of telling everyone where you are if you allow them.  Teens with smartphones were most likely to use the location services than those with a regular phone.  This is scary.  I think with so many predators out there, parents should not allow their teens to indicate to anyone or the public what their location is.  I wonder if parental controls can shut off that part of Facebook or Twitter?

     The Pew Research Center's research has determined that the most popular form of communication amongst teen is texting.  They will text with their friends and all kinds of

people including their families.  Many teens are no longer instant messaging or emailing.  Those two modes of communication are on a rapid decline.  I think this is because texting has instant results, and you don't have to go on any app to text.  Teens are still using social medias to communicate but they do not use it as often as texting.  This research also said that teens still like to get together with their friends outside of school to socialize. 

     Today's teenagers are using their phones more and more often.  They use them to text, go online, and talk.  Teens are choosing text messaging as their form of communicating with their friends, family, and other people in their lives.  The Pew Research Center research found that those teens with higher educated parents will most likely have smartphones and use them for texting and going online.  I believe that with cell phones evolving constantly more and more people will be using them more and more for communicating and probably most likely the laptop will soon become absolute. 

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