(NNPA)—According to a new analysis of cell phone usage by The Nielsen Company, African-Americans spend more time on average talking and texting than any other ethnic group. The voice and text results are compiled from one year (April 2009-March 2010) of mobile usage data gathered by Nielsen, which analyzes the cellphone bills of more than 60,000 mobile subscribers each month in the United States.
Nielsen found that African-Americans use on average more than 1,300 voice minutes a month, compared to the next most talkative segment, Hispanics, which talk on average 826 minutes a month. Asian/Pacific Islanders logged on average 692 talk minutes a month, followed by Whites, who use approximately 647 voice minutes a month.
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Black consumers sent and received on average 780 SMS text messages per month, more than any other group. Hispanics averaged 767 text messages. Whites were third with a monthly average of 566 messages, followed by Asian/Pacific islanders with 384 texts.
The Nielsen analysis also found that women outranked men (856 vs. 666) for minutes spent talking on cell phones. Likewise women led in text messages over men, with 601 vs. 447.
While teens 18-24 text more that adults 25-34, cellphone voice usage is quite close (981 voice minutes for 18-24 and 952 minutes a month for those 25-34 years old.)
Seventy-five percent of 12-17-year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45 percent in 2004. Those phones have become indispensable tools in teen communication patterns. Fully 72 percent of all teens, or 88 percent of teen cell phone users, are text-messagers. That is a sharp rise from the 51 percent of teens who were texters in 2006. More than half of teens (54 percent) are daily texters.
Location plays into usage patterns as well. Southerners are the most talkative, but while it ranks high in terms of monthly voice minutes used, it ranks very low for text messaging. Mississippi ranks high for both talking and texting.
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