AP, LTW
Blacks talk twice as much as whites on their cell phones, and women talk and text more than men, according to an analysis of wireless bills by the Nielsen Co.
The media-tracking firm went through the phone bills of 60,000 people for one year to figure out that blacks talk an average of 1,331 minutes per month, compared with 647 minutes per month for whites.
"And if you think women in the U.S. talk more than men on their cellphones, Nielsen data confirms your suspicion," Nilesn added in a blog about its report.
"On average, women talk 22 percent more than men (856.3 minutes a month compared to men’s 666.7). Turns out, American women are more communicative in general on mobile devices; they text more, too, sending or receiving an average of 601 SMS messages a month compared to the 447 monthly text messages sent or received by the average American male."
When it comes to texting, teens dominate.
"Not surprisingly, teens text the most, sending or receiving an amazing 2,779 SMS messages a month," Nielsen reported. "In the next two age brackets, text usage falls by more than half each time, with those aged 18-24 sending or receiving 1,299 messages and those aged 25-34 exchanging an average of 592 messages.
"While the text usage varies greatly between those 18-24 and those 25-34, their voice usage is quite close (981 voice minutes for 18-24 and 952 minutes a month for those 25-34 years old)," Nielsen added.
Whites were the least talkative people in the study, which ended in May. Hispanics talked 826 minutes per month, and Asians and Pacific Islanders 692 minutes per month.
This isn’t because blacks talk and whites text. Blacks text more too: 780 messages per month, compared with 566 for whites. Hispanics text almost as much as blacks, at 767 messages per month. Asians and Pacific Islanders text the least, at 384 per month.
One reason blacks talk more on cell phones may be that fewer of them have home phones, but this hardly explains the whole difference. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 25 percent of black adults had only cell phone service last year, compared with 21 percent for white adults.
Blacks make more use of other phone features, too. A study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project last year found that blacks were a lot more likely to use the Internet from their phones. That finding might be party explained by their lagging adoption of home broadband.
The greater number of black and Hispanics in the South means that it’s the most talkative area of the country. The area of heavy texting is less well defined, but it’s generally more popular in the South and in the interior of the country.
Mississippi is unusual in that inhabitants are big on both texting and talking, something Nielsen believes may be due to its black population being relatively large and young — teenagers text a lot more than adults, of course.
The Nielsen panel of 60,000 households was weighted to match the Census. However, it looked only at households that got phone bills. People who have prepaid service generally don’t get bills and make up about 20 percent of wireless subscribers.
For more information about the report,
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