Digital Trends

An analysis of three Harris Poll surveys finds cell phones are popular with the under-30 crowd. But also, one in six U.S. adults say they use VoIP calling.

An analysis of three polls conducted by Harris Interactive has turned up some pretty obvious findings: like, Americans under 30 are especially likely to use cell phones. Amazing! But the analysis of the three polls also turned up some other interesting trends, some of which are not so obvious.

First, 98 percent of American adults say they have some sort of phone service, with over 80 percent of U.S. adults say they have a landline phone and 77 percent saying they have a mobile phone. However, one third of 18 to 29 year-olds say they only use a cell phone or Internet (VoIP) to make phone calls: no landline involved. Overall, 16 percent of U.S. adults report using VoIP to place at least some telephone calls.

The polls also show that about 63 percent of U.S. adults take multiple approaches to placing phone calls. However, about 18 percent say they only use a landline, 11 percent say they're only using a mobile phone, and just 2 percent say they're only using VoIP.

The polls also find that mobile phone users skew younger than the general adult population. Interestingly, mobile phone users also deviate from the general U.S. adult population in that they're slightly more male (55 percent, compared to 48 percent), less likely to be affluent, and less likely to to be Republican and more likely to categorize themselves as liberal rather than conservative.

Harris notes that younger mobile phone users' tendency to only use cell phones may have important implications for researchers like Harris, who traditionally conduct telephone surveys using only (you guessed it) traditional landline exchanges. So if you find telephone survey results increasingly don't mesh with your everyday reality…it could be that polling organizations haven't figured out how to reach you.