Taken together, 42% of cell owners said yes to one or both of these questions and are classified as smartphone owners. The remaining 58% of cell owners have some kind of mobile phone other than a smartphone.<\/p>\n\n
Age differences in smartphone adoption<\/b><\/p>\n\n Smartphone ownership is highest among Americans in their mid-twenties through mid-thirties, as fully 58% of 25-34 year olds own a smartphone. Smartphone ownership begins to tail off at around 45 years of age, before dropping dramatically at around age 65 (just one in ten seniors own a smartphone, and 44% do not have a cell phone of any kind).<\/p>\n\n Income differences in smartphone adoption<\/b><\/p>\n\n Smartphone ownership is highly correlated with household income. Respondents from the highest income cohort (those with an annual household income of $150,000 or more) are around three and a half times as likely as those in the lowest income group (with an annual household income of $10,000 or less) to own a smartphone: roughly three quarters of high-income earners do so, compared with one in five low-income earners.<\/p>\n\n A household income of $75,000 is the approximate point at which Americans are more likely to own a smartphone than not\u2014more than half of Americans above this income level are smartphone owners, and cell phone ownership in general is near-ubiquitous (95% or more) past this point in the income distribution.<\/p>\n\n While smartphone ownership is a majority proposition among higher-income earners, those Americans with a household income of less than $30,000 per year primarily own more basic mobile phones. Indeed, members of this lower-income cohort are as likely to lack a cell phone entirely as they are to own a smartphone (22% own a smartphone, while 23% have no cell phone at all).<\/p>\n\n Although low-income Americans as a whole are relatively unlikely to own a smartphone, there is quite a bit of age variation within this group. Among 18-29 year olds earning less than $30,000 per year, 39% own a smartphone (on par with the national average) and just 8% have no cell phone at all. By contrast, fully 57% of low-income seniors do not own a cell phone, and smartphone adoption rates for this group are extremely low at just 4%. <\/p>\n\n Other factors correlated with smartphone ownership<\/b><\/p>\n\n For several years, Pew Internet research has found that African-Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to use their cell phones for non-voice applications such as using the internet, playing games, or accessing multimedia content. These differences extend to smartphone ownership as well, as 44% of black and Latino adults are smartphone owners, compared with 30% of whites.[3. In its August-September 2010 survey of Latinos and technology adoption, the Pew Hispanic Center found that 76% of Latinos are cell phone owners (see http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/hispanic\/reports\/report.php?ReportID=134). This compares with our current finding that 86% of Latinos are cell owners. Although Pew Internet Project surveys include Spanish-language interviews, they typically contain a lower percentage of such respondents than surveys conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center.]<\/p>\n\n Employment status is also closely linked with smartphone ownership. Nearly half of full-time employees (48%) have a smartphone of some kind, as do 38% of those who are employed part-time. Roughly one quarter of those who are not employed for pay (27%) have this type of device, while just 13% of retirees do so.<\/p>\n\n Smartphone owners and their technology assets<\/b><\/p>\n\n Smartphone users own a wide range of devices in addition to their phones. Eight in ten smartphone owners also own a laptop computer, and e-book readers and tablet computers are much more prevalent among smartphone owners than in the general population.<\/p>\n\n In their own words\u2014how smartphone owners describe their phones<\/b><\/p>\n\n Along with asking about smartphone adoption and usage, we also included a question in our spring survey that asked cell phone owners to provide the one word that best describes how they feel about their phones. The smartphone owners we surveyed provided an enormous diversity of reactions to this question\u2014the 662 responses we coded included 177 unique descriptors\u2014so few words or phrases stuck out clearly from the pack. The three most common words were \u201cgood\u201d (mentioned by 10% of smartphone owners), \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cconvenient\u201d (each mentioned by 7% of smartphone owners). Overall, 72% of smartphone owners used a positive word (such as \u201cgood\u201d, \u201cgreat\u201d, \u201cexcellent\u201d or \u201cconvenient\u201d) to describe their phones, 16% used a negative description (such as \u201cexpensive\u201d or \u201cfrustrated\/frustrating\u201d) and 12% offered a neutral word choice (such as \u201cadequate\u201d, \u201cOK\u201d, \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cfine\u201d).<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/media\/168E5CCDCDE44CFAAA85D6D8A79916B4.JPG\")
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