Everybody Has a Cell Phone

Almost all the children of respondents in this study had access to a cell phone by age thirteen; some parents bought it earlier, and most parents with younger children said that they would buy a phone when their child hit middle school. There is only a very modest class difference in the frequency of cell phone ownership among children.10 These findings are in line with those emerging from a study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which found that among households composed of married couples with children, 89 percent own multiple cell phones and that 57 percent of the children (aged seven to seventeen) in these households have their own cell phone. A study by U. S. Cellular had a similar finding, that at least 60 percent of all teens have cell phones.11