Cell phones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls
By JENNA WORTHAM
Published: May 13, 2010
[1] For many Americans, cell phones have become irreplaceable tools to manage their lives and
stay connected to the outside world, their families and networks of friends online. But
increasingly, by several measures, that does not mean talking on them very much.
For example, although almost 90 percent of households in the United States now have a cell
[5] phone, the growth in voice minutes used by consumers has stagnated, according to government
and industry data. This is true even though more households each year are disconnecting their
landlines in favor of cell phones.
Instead of talking on their cell phones, people are making use of all the extras that iPhones,
BlackBerrys and other smartphones were also designed to do — browse the Web, listen to
[10] music, watch television, play games and send e-mail and text messages.
The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year,
according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in the United
States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services
on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cell phone calls, industry
[15] executives and analysts say.
“Originally, talking was the only cell phone application,” said Dan Hesse, chief executive of a
large American telecommunications company. “But now it’s less than half of the traffic on
mobile networks.”
Of course, talking on the cell phone isn’t disappearing entirely. But figures from the CTIA show
[20] that over the last two years, the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States
has fallen. When people do talk on their phones, their conversations are shorter and the unused
voice minutes mount up.
“I have thousands of rollover minutes,” said Zach Frechette, 28, editor of Good magazine in Los
Angeles, who explained that he dialed only when he needed to get in touch with someone
[25] instantly, and limited those calls to 30 seconds.
Mr. Frechette said part of the reason he rarely talked on his phone was that he had an iPhone.
But also, he said, most of his day was spent swapping short messages through services like
Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. That way, he said, “you can respond when it’s convenient, rather
than impose your schedule on someone else.”
[30] Others say talking on the phone is intrusive and time-consuming, while others seem to have no
patience for talking to just one person at a time.
“Even though in theory, it might take longer to send a text than pick up the phone, it seems less
disruptive than a call,” said Jefferson Adams, a 44-year-old freelance writer living in San
Francisco. By texting, he said, “you can multitask between two or three conversations at once.”
[35] American teenagers have been ahead 35 of the curve for a while, turning their cell phones into
texting machines; more than half of them send about 1,500 text messages each month,
according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.
Mrs. Colburn, from Massachusetts, said she caved to the pleading of her 12-year-old daughter
Abigail for a cell phone to send text messages with her friends after she and her husband
[40] discovered it was hindering her from developing bonds with her classmates. “We realized she
was being excluded from party invitations and being in the know with her peers,” she said.
Mrs. Colburn said texting had also become a much easier way to stay in touch with her daughter
and receive quick updates about after-school plans. “The other night she texted me from upstairs
to ask a vocabulary question,” she said with a laugh. “But I drew the line there. I went upstairs
[45] to answer it.”
Adapted from HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2010/05/14/TECHNOLOGY/PERSONALTECH/14TALK.HTML?REF=TECHNOLOGY ACCESS ON MAY 15TH , 2010
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