Pew: Hispanics Less Tech-Connected
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, February 9, 2011
More than three quarters (77%) of whites went online in 2010, compared to about two-thirds of Hispanic (65%) and black (66%) adults. When it comes to connecting to the Web through a high-speed connection at home, the gap is even wider: 65% of whites do so compared to 45% of Latinos and 52% of blacks.
Hispanics, on average, have lower levels of education and earn less than whites, according to the study. Controlling for these factors, however, the differences in Internet, home broadband and cell phone use disappear. "In other words, Hispanics and whites who have similar socioeconomic characteristics have similar usage patterns for these technologies," stated the report.
Hispanics are also generally younger than whites, but even within each age group show lower levels of technology adoption. In the mobile sphere, fully 85% of whites owned a cell phone in 2010, versus 76% of Latinos and 79% of blacks.
But Latinos are more likely than whites to go online via phones in lieu of a home Internet connection. So 6% of Hispanics access the Web on phones because they can't at home. The rate is about the same for blacks, but higher than for whites (1%). Overall, 31% of Latinos go on the mobile Web, compared to 29% of whites and 41% of blacks.
Hispanics are somewhat less likely than whites to use any non-voice applications on a cell phone (58% vs. 64%) and to send or receive text messages (55% vs. 61%). But the two groups are equally likely to use email on phones. So in terms of mobile data activity, usage levels among whites and Hispanics are not all that different.
Both Latinos and blacks, however, rated much higher in instant message via mobile phones, at 34% and 35%, respectively, compared to 20% for whites.
Separate findings from Nielsen last week showed that Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders were the most likely to be smartphone owners. The research firm said 45% of mobile users in each ethnic group had a smartphone, compared to 33% of African-American and 27% of white mobile subscribers. The Pew study did not distinguish between feature phone and smartphone owners.
The Pew report is based on two surveys. One is a nationally representative bilingual telephone survey of 1,375 adults conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center from August 17 through September 19, 2010. The other is the Pew Internet and American Life Project's August 2010 Health Tracking Survey, which interviewed 3,001 adults between August 9 and September 13, 2010.
After reading the press release that went out yesterday from the Pew Hispanic Center citing statistics about “Hispanics being less likely than Whites” across the board in their use of Internet, Broadband and Cell Phones, I felt it was important to write this response. I’ve seen the article and subsequent numbers circulated wide and far, and it is with that in mind that I’m asking you to PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS RESPONSE as well.
I’m a big fan of the Pew Hispanic Center and have quoted their data often. Most recently, in a speech I did at the MPG Collaborative a few months ago. However, in 2011 (a critical Census year), it’s very important that generalizations are not made about the U.S. Hispanic market as was done in yesterday’s press release. For those who looked at their numbers broken out by nativity and language stratification, it tells a very different story than the press release indicated. U.S-born, English-dominant and bilingual Latinos’ usage of Internet, Broadband and Cell Phones is largely in line with that of Whites. With respect to Internet, the numbers are Native Borns 81% vs. Whites 77%. For Broadband, it’s Native Borns at 60% and Whites at 65%, and for Cell Phones it’s Native Borns at 86% and Whites at 85%. Seeing as Native Borns represent the MAJORITY of U.S. Hispanics living in this country today, it’s critical that generalizations aren’t made about our market as a whole putting everyone in the same bucket. In truth, U.S-borns are OVER-indexing vs. Whites in many cases. As cited elsewhere, this has also been the case in terms of creating content for the Web, usage of Social Media, blogging and beyond.
In a time when key decisions are being made about the U.S. Hispanic market and where to spend advertising dollars, I felt it was the NGLC’s responsibility to point out these numbers. There are roughly 30MM U.S. Hispanics online today. The wide majority of them are NGLs. The amount being spent against this segment in no way mirrors the opportunity it represents. We as an industry need to move forward and encourage those investing in our market to look at the fastest growing segments that are driving much of the growth. In this case, there is no question that NGLs are the ones leading the U.S. Hispanic charge on the Internet, Broadband and Cell Phone fronts. Here are charts from the Pew Hispanic Center’s study to further elaborate on this point:
In closing, I’m asking that you please FORWARD THIS to help those who put a lot of emphasis on numbers make informed decisions about the U.S. Hispanic market opportunity. We’ll be talking a lot more about this subject at the NGLC Media, Marketing & Entertainment conference on Monday, April 11th in NYC.
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