Infographic – Phones Top Internet Access Method

Click on image for full-size access (Pew Research Center)

15 June 2019. Smartphones are becoming a key technology for innovations in a range of industries, as we’ve described any number of times in Science & Enterprise. Findings from a Pew Research Center survey released this week show more Americans with smartphones use their phones to access the Internet than other methods, this weekend’s infographic.

The Pew survey conducted earlier this year shows cell or smartphone use is almost universal in the U.S. Overall, 96 percent of Americans say they have some kind of mobile phone and the vast majority of phone owners, 81 percent, use a smartphone.

Among smartphone owners in the U.S., nearly half (46%) use those phones as their  primary way to access the Internet, up from about one-third (34%) in 2013. About 3 in 10 smartphone owners use desktop or laptop computers as their main means for getting online, while about a quarter (23%) use both methods about equally. In 2013, just over half (53%) of phone users cited desktop or laptop computers as their primary Internet access method.

As one might expect, phone users accessing the Internet are younger, with half to 6 in 10 phone users age 49 and under using their smartphones to go online. In contrast, more than 4 in 10 phone users (42 to 44%) age 50 and higher still user their computers to get on the Internet.

More from Science & Enterprise:

• Infographic – Mobile Phones in Emerging Economies
• Infographic – 5G Phone Service to Far Surpass 4G
• Infographic – Apple Phone Sales Down, Wearables Up

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