How Americans Use Their Smartphones
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — This should come as no surprise: Americans are more attached than ever to their smartphones, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center that questioned more than 2,000 people.
Nearly two-thirds of adult Americans own a smartphone — up from 35 percent in the spring of 2011, according to the study.
Perhaps even more interesting, Pew reported that 7 percent of users are smartphone-dependent, meaning that their device is their primary source of Internet access and that they have little to no options for getting online elsewhere.
The economic disparity for smartphone dependent users is also apparent, with 13 percent of Americans earning less than $30,000 per year relying on their smartphones for Internet access. For those with income of more than $75,000, that shrinks to 1 percent.
Nearly half of smartphone-dependent people have also had to shut down their service for a period of time due to the cost of service, while 30 percent reported they often ran out of their allotted data for the month.
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