If the usage habits of the young are any indication of the future of media consumption--and they usually are--then the cell phone will soon become THE de facto personal media device of the 21 st
Century. People from the ages of 18-29 and minorities are more likely than other consumers to use their phones as personal computers, cameras, MP3 players and more, according to a joint survey from
AOL, the Associated Press, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Nearly two thirds of young adults use their phones to send text messages, more than half take pictures with their built-in
cameras and almost half play downloadable games on their phones. They use these features almost twice as often as the average cell phone owner. The survey also found that minorities--especially
Latinos--were more likely to use these features than whites. As one tech industry author and former Stanford University professor said, "We think of t hem as mobile phones, but the personal computer,
mobile phone and the Internet are merging into some new medium like the personal computer in the 1980s or the Internet in the 1990s." The AP-AOL-Pew poll of 1,503 adults included 1,286 cell phone
users and was conducted March 8-26. The say the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Half of the interviews were conducted via landlines and half were conducted via cell
phone.
Read the whole story at Associated Press »
