Nearly two-thirds (63%) of cell phone owners now use their phone to go online, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.  We call them “cell internet users” and define them as anyone who uses their cell phone to access the internet or use email. Because 91% of all Americans now own a cell phone, this means that 57% of all American adults are cell internet users. The proportion of cell owners who use their phone to go online has doubled since 2009.

Additionally, one third of these cell internet users (34%) mostly use their phone to access the internet, as opposed to other devices like a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer.  We call these individuals “cell-mostly internet users,” and they account for 21% of the total cell owner population. Young adults, non-whites, and those with relatively low income and education levels are particularly likely to be cell-mostly internet users.

About this survey

These are findings from a national telephone survey conducted April 17-May 19, 2013 among 2,252 adults ages 18 and over, including 1,127 interviews conducted on the respondent’s cell phone.  Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish.  The margin of error for all cell phone owners (n=2,076) is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.  The margin of error for cell phone owners who go online using their phone (n=1,185) is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Nearly two thirds of cell phone owners use their phone to go online, and one in five cell owners do most of their online browsing on their phone

Six in ten cell phone owners (63%) now go online using their mobile phones, an eight-point increase from the 55% of cell owners who did so at a similar point in 2012 and a two-fold increase over the 31% who did so in 2009. We call these individuals “cell internet users,” and they include anyone who:

• Uses the internet on their cell phone (60% of cell owners do this), or
• Uses email on their cell phone (52% of cell owners do this)

Taken together, 63% of cell owners do one or both of these things, and are classified as cell internet users. Since 91% of Americans are cell phone owners, this means that 57% of all Americans now go online using a mobile phone. The steady increase in cell phone internet usage follows a similar growth trajectory for smartphone ownership.  Over half of all adults (56%) now own a smartphone, and 93% of these smartphone owners use their phone to go online.

The demographics of cell phone internet usage

Just as the overall increase in cell phone internet usage has coincided with the growth in smartphone adoption, the demographic groups most likely to go online using their phones tend to match those with high levels of smartphone ownership. In particular, the following groups have high levels of cell phone internet use:

• Young adults: Cell owners ages 18-29 are the most likely of any demographic group to use their phone to go online: 85% of them do so, compared with 73% of cell owners ages 30-49, and 51% of those ages 50-64. Just 22% of cell owners ages 65 and older go online from their phones, making seniors the least likely demographic group to go online from a cell phone.
• Non-whites: Three-quarters (74%) of African-American cell phone owners are cell internet users, as are 68% of Hispanic cell owners.
• The college-educated: Three-quarters (74%) of cell owners with a college degree or higher are cell internet users, along with two-thirds (67%) of those who have attended (but not graduated) college.
• The financially well-off: Cell phone owners living in households with an annual income of $75,000 or more per year are significantly more likely than those in every other income category to go online using their phones.  Some 79% of these affluent cell owners do so.
• Urban and suburban residents: Urban and suburban cell owners are significantly more likely to be cell internet users than those living in rural areas.  Some 66% of urbanites and 65% of suburban-dwellers do so, compared to half of rural residents.

The prevalence of cell phone internet usage increased across a number of demographic groups since April 2012.  This includes men and women, whites and African-Americans, the college-educated, and those in the highest-income households.   Notably, cell owners between the ages of 50 and 64 experienced a larger-than-average 15 percentage point increase in the past year. Some 51% of cell owners ages 50-64 now use their phone to go online, up from 36% who did so in the spring of 2012.

34% of cell internet users go online mostly using their phones

When asked which device they use most often to access the internet, one third (34%) of cell internet users say that they mostly use their cell phone rather than some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer (we refer to this group as “cell-mostly internet users”). Half (53%) of cell internet users say that they mostly go online from a device other than their cell phone, while 11% say that they use both their phone and some other device(s) equally.

As noted above, some 63% of cell owners use their phone to go online, so the “cell-mostly internet user” group represents 21% of the entire cell phone owner population.

The 34% of cell internet users who mostly use their phone to go online is similar to the 31% who did so in April 2012, but significantly larger than the 27% who did so the first time we asked this question in May 2011.

Demographics of cell-mostly internet users

The Pew Research Center has been tracking the “cell mostly internet user” phenomenon since 2011, and over that time several demographic groups—young adults, non-whites, the less educated, and the less affluent—have said that they go online mostly using their cell phone at consistently high rates.¹ This remains true in 2013, as our data indicates:

• Non-whites: Among those who use their phone to go online, six in ten Hispanics and 43% of African-Americans are cell-mostly internet users, compared with 27% of whites.
• Young adults: Half of cell internet users ages 18-29 mostly use their cell phone to go online.
• The less-educated: Some 45% of cell internet users with a high school diploma or less mostly use their phone to go online, compared with 21% of those with a college degree.
• The less-affluent: Similarly, 45% of cell internet users living in households with an annual income of less than $30,000 mostly use their phone to go online, compared with 27% of those living in households with an annual income of $75,000 or more.

This report is based on the findings of a survey on Americans’ use of the Internet. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from April 17 to May 19, 2013, among a sample of 2,252 adults, age 18 and older.  Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (1,125) and cell phone (1,127, including 571 without a landline phone). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.  For results based on Internet users (n=1,895), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.  In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting telephone surveys may introduce some error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

A combination of landline and cellular random digit dial (RDD) samples was used to represent all adults in the United States who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone. Both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International, LLC (SSI) according to PSRAI specifications.  Numbers for the landline sample were drawn with equal probabilities from active blocks (area code + exchange + two-digit block number) that contained three or more residential directory listings. The cellular sample was not list-assisted, but was drawn through a systematic sampling from dedicated wireless 100-blocks and shared service 100-blocks with no directory-listed landline numbers.

New sample was released daily and was kept in the field for at least five days. The sample was released in replicates, which are representative subsamples of the larger population. This ensures that complete call procedures were followed for the entire sample.  At least 7 attempts were made to complete an interview at a sampled telephone number. The calls were staggered over times of day and days of the week to maximize the chances of making contact with a potential respondent. Each number received at least one daytime call in an attempt to find someone available. For the landline sample, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult male or female currently at home based on a random rotation. If no male/female was available, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult of the other gender. For the cellular sample, interviews were conducted with the person who answered the phone. Interviewers verified that the person was an adult and in a safe place before administering the survey. Cellular sample respondents were offered a post-paid cash incentive for their participation. All interviews completed on any given day were considered to be the final sample for that day.

Weighting is generally used in survey analysis to compensate for sample designs and patterns of non-response that might bias results. A two-stage weighting procedure was used to weight this dual-frame sample. The first-stage corrected for different probabilities of selection associated with the number of adults in each household and each respondent’s telephone usage patterns. This weighting also adjusts for the overlapping landline and cell sample frames and the relative sizes of each frame and each sample.

The second stage of weighting balances sample demographics to population parameters. The sample is balanced to match national population parameters for sex, age, education, race, Hispanic origin, region (U.S. Census definitions), population density, and telephone usage. The Hispanic origin was split out based on nativity; U.S born and non-U.S. born. The basic weighting parameters came from the US Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey data. The population density parameter was derived from Census 2010 data. The telephone usage parameter came from an analysis of the January-June 2012 National Health Interview Survey.

Following is the full disposition of all sampled telephone numbers:

The disposition reports all of the sampled telephone numbers ever dialed from the original telephone number samples. The response rate estimates the fraction of all eligible respondents in the sample that were ultimately interviewed. At PSRAI it is calculated by taking the product of three component rates:

• Contact rate – the proportion of working numbers where a request for interview was made
• Cooperation rate – the proportion of contacted numbers where a consent for interview was at least initially obtained, versus those refused
• Completion rate – the proportion of initially cooperating and eligible interviews that were completed

Thus the response rate for the landline sample was 10 percent. The response rate for the cellular sample was 13 percent.