A new survey conducted by AOL, the Associated Press, and the Pew Research Center finds that Americans are making increased use of their cell phones and mobile services: fully 52 percent of adults surveyed never turn of their cell phones, and 40 percent of those aged 18 to 29 are likely to drop their landline telephone service.
AOL will be happy to know that the survey found the most-requested “must have” feature for 2006 is mobile mapping (since AOL subsidiary MapQuest announced that very thing today). with 51 percent of respondents saying they either use or would like to use mobile maps on their cell phones. Other must-have services included the ability to send text messages (48 percent), take pictures (47 percent), play games (34 percent), send mobile email (32 percent), conduct mobile Internet searches (31 percent), browse the Internet (30 percent), play music (25 percent) and record video (23 percent). Another 21 percent wanted to have messages from instant messaging service (AIM, Yahoo Messenger, etc.) appear on their cell phones, 18 percent wanted to be able to send messages to IM networks, and 16 percent wanted to watch video or television.
Not surprisingly, the survey found text messaging is more popular with younger cell phone users, with 65 percent of respondents between ages 18 to 29 saying the send SMS text messages, compared to just 37 percent of hose ages 30 to 49.
Surprisingly, 74 percent of respondents say they’ve used their cell phone in an emergency.
Cell phone usage also has its downsides: 22 percent of respondents say they have not always been truthful about their location when they’re using their cell phone. (“Honest, sir, I’m at my desk right now!”) Fully 39 of respondents ages 18 to 29 admitted to being less than truthful about their location.
Half of the survey respondents say they frequently encounter people talking loudly on their cell phones in public, and 32 percent say they occasionally encounter mobile phone users with poor social etiquette. However, only eight percent reported they thhey themselves have received dirty looks for their own cell phone manners
