In the United States, it is mainly people with higher incomes who use the home Internet, while those earning less than $30,000 a year are increasingly relying on smartphones, according to the center's latest research report.
Overall, home Internet use is on the rise; But a larger percentage of low-income people are using smartphones as their only way to get online than in previous years.
This year, 26% of us adults earning less than $30,000 said they were "single smartphone" Internet users, compared with 12% in 2013, 20% in 2015 and 21% in 2016. Among those earning $75,000, the figure was just 6%, little changed from 5% in 2013.
It is also higher among Hispanics and blacks. According to the 2019 data, 23 percent of blacks and 25 percent of Hispanics among adults use only smartphones, not home broadband. It's important to note that these figures all suggest that people are slightly less dependent on smartphones than they were in 2018.
"I think that while overall there has been a small decline in smartphone dependence (3 percentage points), the 'single smartphone' phenomenon is quite common among low-income people, black or Hispanic Americans." "Not all subgroup changes were statistically significant, as the sample size for 2019 was smaller than that for 2018," the senior researcher said.
In 2019, 92 percent of adults surveyed in the United States who used home Internet made more than $75,000 a year, while 56 percent of them made less than $30,000.
This difference is the key to some websites working well on mobile browsers, such as government services or recruitment sites. In fact, U.S. Government reports show that people are increasingly accessing federal services via smartphones, and in 2018, the Connected Government Act was passed, requiring the federal Government to provide mobile-friendly websites. There are other problems with using smartphones as the main way to connect to the Internet, such as not being able to fill out forms similar to those needed to apply for a job. Smartphones can't multitask, and they can't install or use individual proprietary software, including potential educational tools or portals for young students.
Thanks to technology, smartphones now have the same features as laptops or desktops, or lower-income people will struggle.
