Mobile Phones Bridging the Digital Divide for Teens in the US?

Katie Brown, Scott W. Campbell and Rich Ling
Additional contact information
Katie Brown: Department of Communication Studies, The University of Michigan, 105 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Scott W. Campbell: Department of Communication Studies, The University of Michigan, 105 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Rich Ling: Department of Communication Studies, The University of Michigan, 105 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Future Internet, 2011, vol. 3, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: In 2009, just 27% of American teens with mobile phones reported using their devices to access the internet. However, teens from lower income families and minority teens were significantly more likely to use their phones to go online. Together, these surprising trends suggest a potential narrowing of the digital divide, offering internet access to those without other means of going online. This is an important move, as, in today’s society, internet access is central to active citizenship in general and teen citizenship in particular. Yet the cost of this move toward equal access is absorbed by those who can least afford it: Teenagers from low income households. Using survey and focus group data from a national study of “Teens and Mobile Phone Use” (released by Pew and the University of Michigan in 2010), this article helps identify and explain this and other emergent trends for teen use (as well as non-use) of the internet through mobile phones.

Keywords: digital divide; internet; mobile phone; cell phone; teens; texting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/2/144/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/2/144/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jftint:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:144-158:d:12382

Access Statistics for this article

Future Internet is currently edited by Ms. Grace You

More articles in Future Internet from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().