The Pew Research Center has found in a survey how common smartphones are among poorer people in America as a tool for getting access to the Internet.
The survey, conducted from October through December with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, showed that 7 percent of Americans can only go on the Internet with their smartphone, which has earned the group the term "smartphone reliant" from Pew, according to USA Today. This group consists of younger, poorer and less-educated smartphone users that are also more likely than the rest of the country to be a member of a minority.
The finding comes at a time when online access has become more necessary than ever, as Pew discovered in previous research that about 89 percent of Americans use the Internet.
"Their phone is really their primary access point for all of the things we take for granted in the online space," said Aaron Smith, a senior Pew researcher.
An important discovery in the survey is that smartphones have become a tool for a variety of purposes among low-income households, such as looking for jobs or accessing health-care information, CNBC reported. Phones have also become popular tools for online banking, education, accessing real estate listings and submitting job applications.
The research also showed that while 13 percent with an annual household income of less than $30,000 said they were "heavily" dependent on their phone, 1 percent of households earning more than $75,000 annually needed phones to go online.
Twelve percent of African-Americans and 13 percent of Latinos were smartphone reliant, while only 4 percent of the group was white, the survey found, CNBC reported. Fifteen percent of Americans, from ages 18 to 29, were also found to have a strong need for smartphones to go on the Internet.
About one-fourth of the smartphone reliant had to cancel or suspend their phone service because they couldn't afford it, and 15 percent of the group "frequently" reached their plans' maximum data use, USA Today.
"Even though this is their lifeline to services that all of us take for granted, it isn't always there when they need it," Smith said.
