Kids’ Mobile Phone Ownership Grows 68 Percent in Last 5 Years
By Anna Johnson on January 13th, 2010Mobile phone ownership among U.S. children aged 6 to 11 years has increased 68 percent in the past five years, according to MRI’s recently-released American Kids Study.
According to MRI, 20 percent of U.S. children aged 6-11 currently own a mobile phone, up from 11.9 percent of children in 2005. In particular, mobile phone ownership among 10-11 year olds has grown by a massive 80.5 percent from 20 percent of kids in this age group owning mobile phones in 2005 to 36.1 percent in 2009.
Girls are more likely to own a mobile phone than boys, with 21.8 percent of girls owning a mobile phone in 2009 (up from 18.6 percent in 2007) and 18.3 percent of boys owning a mobile phone in 2009 (up from 12.4 percent in 2007).
What do kids do with their mobile phones? According to MRI, in 2009, the most popular mobile phone activities among U.S. kids were as follows:
- Call my parents: 88.1 percent
- Call friends: 68.1 percent
- Emergency purposes: 55.7 percent
- Text messaging: 54.1 percent
- Play games: 49.0 percent
- Take pictures: 47.8 percent
- Listen to music: 34.4 percent
- Picture messaging: 24.2 percent
- Download ringtones: 16.5 percent
MRI’s research is based on its 2009 American Kids Study, involving a survey of approximately 5,000 participants from households.
