More Americans are accessing the Internet using wireless mobile devices such as smartphones and laptops, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
“Use of the Internet on mobile devices has grown sharply from the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2009,” with 56 percent of Americans saying that have “at some point used wireless means for online access,” the Pew Center said.
The research shows African-Americans are the most active users of the mobile Internet and their use of it is also growing the fastest:
- Forty-eight percent of African-Americans have at one time used their mobile device to access the Internet for information, e-mailing or instant messaging, half again the national average of 32 percent.
- Twenty-nine percent of African-Americans use the Internet on their handheld on an average day, also about half again the national average of 19 percent.
- Compared with 2007, when 12 percent of African-Americans used the Internet on their mobile on the average day, use of the mobile internet is up by 141 percent.
The high level of activity among African Americans on mobile devices helps offset lower levels of access tools that have been traditional onramps to the internet, namely desktop computers, laptops and home-broadband connections.
- By a 59%-to-45% margin, white Americans are more likely to go online using a computer on a typical day than African Americans.
- When mobile devices are included in the mix, the gap is cut in half; 61% of whites go online on the average day when mobile access is included, while 54% of African Americans do.
- Looking across a range of digital activities — some done online typically using a computer and others being non-voice data activities on a mobile device — African American and white Americans, on average, do the same number of activities.
So if you are looking to reach African Americans, mobile needs to be a part of your PR plan.
Sally Falkow
A guide to social media and PR
Image Credit: Jon Tintin Jordan