13 May, 2017
For the first time, more than half of the homes in the USA no longer have landline phones, but a wireless phone or a smartphone. Most recently, the CDC found that 60.7-percent of kids (that is to say, teenagers mostly) have only mobile phones where as the figure drops to 50.5-percent when looking at adults specifically.
A government survey of 20,000 USA households found that the percentage who had mobile only phone service reached 50.8%, up from 48.3% a year earlier.
A further 3.3% of homes surveyed had neither a mobile phone nor a landline.
The second half of 2016 was the first time that a majority of the USA homes had only wireless telephones, a US-based news website 247wallst.com reported on Thursday.
However, older adults, like those 65 and up, are extremely less likely to be living in homes without an active landline.
More than seven in ten adults aged 25-29 (72.7%) and aged 30-34 (71.0%) lived in households with only wireless telephones.
When the same study was conducted ten years ago, just 15 percent of American households were wireless only. It did not, however, explore the reasons why a household could drop a landline.
Cellphone-only homes had some odd common strains, according to study co-author Stephen J. Blumberg: "Wireless-only adults are more likely to drink heavily, more likely to smoke and be uninsured". Since the carries out the survey of communication devices every two years the shift away from landlines being connected to the majority of homes to being the minority has occurred within the past two years. "There certainly is something about giving up a landline that appeals to the same people who may engage in risky behavior". Drop us a comment!
