Pew: 65% of Adults Have Slept with Their Phones

Pew is out this morning with more data on US mobile user behavior and attitudes, this time concerning calling and texting. Here are several of the interesting findings from the survey of 1,917 US mobile phone users: 

Change in texting habits among adults, 2009-2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number of texts on a typical day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Median number of calls by age

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pew also speculates that in some cases people may be using text/SMS as an "Internet replacement." However this conclusion is inferred and not based on any direct question(s). The idea is that Internet users have other communication tools and channels available to them and so they rely on SMS less heavily: 

Adults with cell phones who text, but who use the internet infrequently, are more likely to use text messaging to have long conversations. Adults who use the internet less than once a week are more likely than those who use the internet more frequently to say they have long message exchanges on important personal topics several times a day – 22% of infrequent internet users report this, while 8% of daily internet users and 6% of those who use the internet several times a week report having frequent, long text exchanges. These infrequent internet users are also more likely than weekly users to use text messaging to coordinate meeting up with someone (21% vs. 8%) and to use text messaging to communicate silently with someone (19% vs. 7%). Taken together, these findings suggest that some cell phone users may be using their phone’s texting capabilities as a substitute for internet access on a computer.