A large majority of U.S. adults (88%) own a cell phone of some kind, and more than half of these cell owners (55%) use their phone to go online. About three-in-ten (31%) of these cell internet users say that they mostly go online using their cell phone – and not using some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer. That works out to 17% of all adult cell owners who are “cell-mostly internet users”— that is, people who use their phones for most of their online browsing.

Young adults and non-whites are especially likely to use their cell phones for the majority of their online activity. Nearly half of all 18-29 year olds (45%) who use the internet on their cell phones do most of their online browsing on their mobile device.

Half (51%) of African-American cell internet users do most of their online browsing on their phones, double the proportion for whites (24%). Two-in-five Latino cell internet users (42%) also fall into the “cell-mostly” category. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.