More Americans than ever are going completely wireless, with the latest survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing that more than one in five households use only cell phones. A household is defined as a single-person family, multiple family members living together, or unrelated people living together. There has been a growing trend towards exclusively wireless households in the data collected since 2003, but this is the first time the percentage of cell phone-only households (20%) has surpassed the percentage of landline-only households (17%). The shift is mainly attributed to cost savings in the current economic climate. Despite this trend, the percentage of households living without any telephone service has remained unchanged over the past 3 years, leaving 4 million adults and 2 million children completely unconnected. Here are other discoveries from the survey:

 

·        Adults with college degrees (18%) are more likely to be living in cell phone-only households than adults with less education (9.8%).

 

·        Households of un-related family members had the highest rate (60.6%) of having only cell phones.

 

·        Households of families with children (19.2%) are more likely than households of single-family members (12.2%) to use only cell phones.

 

·        Among households with both cell phones and a landline, 24.4% received all or almost all phone calls on a cell phone.

-Jenny Kim

 

More Cell Phone Users Dropping Landlines (by Alan Fram, Associated Press)

Americans Become Harder for Pollsters to Reach (by Carl Bialik, Wall Street Journal)

Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2008 (CDC) (PDF)