Perhaps 56% of U.S. "Tweens" Have Their Own Mobile Phones

There are relatively few human beings left in the United States who do not have their own mobile phones, a new study suggests.

One measure of the popularity of mobile phones is the near-ubiquity of mobile usage among “tweens” between eight and 12. Some 56 percent of respondents surveyed by ORC International say they have purchased cell phones for their young children, ranging from a high of 62 percent in households earning over $100,000 a year and a low of 41 percent in households under $50,000 a year.

Some 81 percent of parents of tweeners put their child on a contract-based mobile phone plan and 15 percent use a prepaid cell phone service. Some 84 percent of parents added a tween user to an existing family plan, the study found.

These days, communications is an attribute of many devices, but especially mobile phones that arguably have become the preferred way people use voice communications. And other data reinforces the notion that teenagers overwhelmingly use mobile communications as their primary communications method.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, for example, shows 54 percent of people 12 to 17 send text messages. Only 38 percent say they “call.”