Pew Study: Latin Youth Use Mobile Tech Less

July 28, 2010 11:59 AM EDT

A study from the Pew Hispanic Center shows that young Latinos are using the Internet to talk with each other as much as other groups, but less likely to use mobile technologies.

The study polled 2,012 people in August and September of 2009, with 1,240 of the respondents being between 16 and 25 years old. The study included both people born in the U.S. and those born elsewhere.

Mobile phones are used extensively among non-Latino and Latino youth, the study says, but notes that the latter group uses them slightly less. Of the Latinos aged 16-17, 49% of them texted daily, whereas among non-Latinos the number was 64%.

Use of the Internet, however, was not very different between the two groups. Eleven percent of 16-17 year olds generally used email to talk to friends, versus 9% of Latinos the same age.

The differences become more pronounced when the respondents wrre divided according to whether they are Spanish-dominant and whether they are native- or foreign-born.

Among those that described themselves as Spanish-dominant, only 19% used text messaging daily, whereas 68% of those who were English-dominant and half of bilinguals did.

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Fully 79% of young latinos said they have access to a cell phone, but in the native born population the rate was 84% while among those born outside the country it was 70%.One reason for the disparity is that native-born youth are more likely to have access to a phone to begin with.

There was also a difference between young men and women. A young latino woman was more likely to use a social neworking site to talk to friends -- fully 27% of women used a site such as MySpace or Facebook, but only 19% of men. But the women were less likely to talk face-to-face, 15% vs. 26%.

And it's no surprise that the younger set uses uses mobile technologies more than their parents. Only 21% of the over-26 set used mobile technology to communicate, while half of their younger brothers and sisters did.

This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader